INTO THE DREAMS. SYMBOLISM

The exhibition Dreams and Mysticism introduces the ecstatic international symbolism to Ordrupgaard for the first time. Through an extraordinary collaboration with a private collector, the museum will be displaying an eminent selection of art dating from around 1900, when the world was going awry and focus shifted from the world outside to the inner realm of human individuality, subjectivity, and emotions. Symbolism questions the focus of realism and impressionism on everyday motifs, planes, and the flickering impressions of light and shade. In the enigmatic world of symbolist imagery, stories of everyday urbane lives give way to an interest in the extra-sensory and matters beyond the realm of rationality: chimeric creatures, unicorns, vampires, mythological figures, and knights and maidens in dreamy, visionary landscapes. Sparks are flying between the sexes, and androgynous figures, femmes fatales, and bristling knights foreshadow an incipent innovative view on gender and sexuality – and the dream about a new world.

The exhibition includes works by Maurice Denis, Romaine Brooks, Camille Claudel, Lucien Lévy-Dhumer, Fernand Khnopff, Alphonse Osbert, Armand Point, Odilon Redon, and Alexandre Séon unfolding the symbolist visionary worlds.