Once again, listening to Agatha's favorite song, I suddenly thought that I understand the concept of decadence (sorry for the tautology) very approximately. I started to climb on the Internet, here's what I roughly dug up:
Wikipedia says
Decadence - [dekade], -a; cf. [from French. decadent - decadent], Decadence [de], -a; m. [French. decadence from lat. decadentia - fall] - 1. Decline, cultural regression; was originally used as a historical term to refer to the cultural phenomena of the Roman Empire in the 2nd-4th centuries. 2. Modernist trend in art of the end of XIX - present. XX centuries, characterized by a commitment to non-classical aesthetics, refined aestheticism, individualism, immoralism. Its founders acted primarily as opponents of the old trends in art, mainly naturalism and realism. The principles proclaimed by them were at first purely formal in nature: the decadents demanded the creation of new forms in art, more flexible and more in line with the complicated worldview of modern man.

Soviet critical thought considered decadence as a general name for the crisis phenomena of European culture in the 2nd half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, marked by moods of hopelessness, rejection of life, and tendencies of individualism. A complex and contradictory phenomenon, it has a source of a crisis of public consciousness, the confusion of many artists in front of the sharp social antagonisms of reality. Art's rejection of political and civic themes was considered by decadent artists to be a manifestation and an indispensable condition for freedom of creativity. Constant themes are the motives of non-existence and death, longing for spiritual values ​​and ideals.
It's not interesting .... We jumped further.
Website
Decadence as it is
Decadence, or rather decadence (from French Decadence - decline, decay; from Latin Decadentia - in translation, fall) - a frequently encountered concept in philosophy, history, culture, as well as in all types of creativity - music, poetry, prose, paintings. Decadence with its decadent mood touched almost everything.

Decadence is not a concept, not a style, but a mood. Despair, when nothing is needed anymore, impotence and disappointment, both in the world and in oneself. And it was precisely this impotence that gave birth to great masterpieces, which by no means made their creators any happier. They remained not understood, both by the public, and they themselves did not understand what the purpose of their birth was. Many ended up in mental hospitals or in the arms of alcoholism.

Decadence originated in Europe at the end of the 19th century under the influence of revolutions, as a protest against the generally recognized "petty-bourgeois morality", as an aversion not only to life, but also an aversion to frames, traditions and foundations, but at the same time elevating depravity to a cult and making sin more aesthetic. Only in this did the decadents find pleasure - to make shame aesthetic, and find joy in savoring feelings, only having experienced disgust for them.

Misunderstanding and rejection from society only increased the pleasure, stimulating the decadents to find more and more sophisticated altars for "rose petals covered with a miasma of vice"
Oh, how he turned down ... Interesting but difficult to understand for a simple layman.
having turned over a bunch of information, she made her thesis, decadence is not just a beautiful word, pale ladies in black dresses and casual relationships. This is a lifestyle, the coloring of the soul, if you will. Pretty relevant these days, don't you think? The decline of moral strength. Lack of faith in people, in yourself. Complete disappointment. I met people who, without knowing it, were a great example of decadence.
Yes, and I myself can hardly keep on this line, between the world of people living with some kind of faith in their souls. And the fact that leaves no chance to get out of the darkness.
Which path will you choose? Decadence is attractive. But this is a pool from which few people got out alive.

“... I am tired of living, and death frightens me. Like a canoe
Forgotten, shattered by the ebb and flow,
My soul is gliding at the behest of the stormy waves."
Paul Verlaine

Man at all times acutely experienced periods of change. The change of seasons, the change of power, the advent of a new century or millennium have always affected society, being reflected in the most unexpected manifestations. Artists and personalities who identify themselves as such reacted (and are reacting) especially sharply to the changes.
Ever since the distant 19th century, it has developed in art that the fading of one or another era was reflected in the work of famous artists, composers and writers. This phenomenon is called the sonorous word "". Surely many will remember the song of the group "Agatha Christie" "Decadence". So, the album "Opium for Nobody", on which this song is present, is a vivid example of domestic decadence at the dawn of the 1990s. But back to, so to speak, the origins.

Modernist art of the late 19th century, with characteristic features of decadence, apathy and individualism, is called decadence. In translation, this word means "decline." Of course, not all art of that period can be called decadent. If you list the main thing in decadence, then it is worth noting individualism, pessimism, immorality, moods of hopelessness and morbidity. The decadents seemed to be tired of academic art and demanded new forms and individualism. However, they did nothing radically new to create these new forms, but simply stated the fact of the decline of culture in their work.
Who was the main decadent of that time? Abroad, these are Oscar Wilde, Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Maria Corelli, Huysmans. In imperial Russia, the decadents were Konstantin Balmont, Zinaida Gippius, Merezhkovsky, Fyodor Sologub, etc. The main themes of their work are disgust for life, hopelessness, decline and regression in society and cultural life. As for style and artistic techniques, their creations are impressionistic in nature and replete with symbols, signs and metaphors. The decadents loved stylization, and the form often prevailed over the content.

Indeed, it was not in vain that poets and artists have been waiting for something irreversible for a long time, the realization that nothing can be changed, and the current era is gradually coming to an end, after which it is not known whether there will be a continuation. European society at the end of the 19th century was in tension and waiting for the irreversible. The First World War fell on Europe, destroyed the old order and marked the beginning of a new world and the era of modern times. Did the European creators really anticipate this war 30 years before it began? Decadence in Russia, although it began a little later than in old Europe, however, subsequently there were much more reasons for pessimism - the revolution of 1905, the First World War, and then the revolution of 1917, followed by a five-year civil war - everything merged into a powerful an avalanche of misery with no end in sight.
Attitudes towards decadence varied at different times. At the end of the 19th century, writers and art historians were arguing about what decadence is - part of symbolism or its beginning? Or maybe it's just a single mood in art and public life? They did not come to a common denominator then. Didn't come to him even now
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In the late 1980s, a wave of decadence swept over Russia again. However, the reasons for this were clear and understandable - the collapse of the USSR was irreversible, and the cessation of its actual existence was only a matter of time. The ability to create freely, the absence of prohibitions and taboo topics caused the rapid growth of underground art. However, not all creative intelligentsia enthusiastically accepted the self-destruction of the system. Pessimistic moods and lack of faith in the future gave rise to decadence among the creative underground, a new surge of decadent moods. Decadents Petersburg and Moscow organized various decadent parties, which gradually grew into festivals of decadent art. However, festivals of decadence appeared almost a decade after the collapse of the USSR. Prior to this, the bohemian public hung modestly in private apartments and small rock clubs.
Already on the eve of the new millennium, decadent bohemia began to appear. So, in 1999, prominent figures of the St. Petersburg underground - Marusa Klimova and Timur Novikov. Then they organized the Dark Nights festival. The event was held in the concert hall of the St. Petersburg Zoo. Well-known St. Petersburg and Moscow musicians, poets, actors, comedians took part in this "most obscene show of the season". Participants demonstrated their skills (or inability) against the backdrop of very modest scenery. In the same period, the now-famous gurus of Russian rock appeared, and then quite decadent in form and content, Boston Tea Party, Obermanneken, and the already mentioned Agatha Christie.

Of course, it is hardly possible to identify the Russian decadent art of the 1990s with the decadence of the end of the century before last. Yes, all the same decadence, pessimism and, if you like, the grotesque. However, in this case, the decadence turned out to be stylized, kitsch. It appeared more pathos and glamor, bordering on bad taste. Bohemia wanted to create an atmosphere of salonism and courtesy, and in the pursuit of this, spirit of decadence. He evaporated behind the fuss, pretense and absurdity. The unhurried contemplation of the withering and dying of an era has vanished, there is no place left for admiring death and sunset.
Decadence festivals are still held in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They came out of houses of culture and damp basements. Now the metropolitan decadents hang out in fashionable clubs, dressed in black velvet and rhinestones, and sing the cocaine arrival. By the way, modern decadent literature and music is generally characterized by such hallucinogenicity. Separate features of decadence can be found in Pelevin, Max Fry, BG and Letov.
At this particular moment, there are also artists who consider themselves to be decadents. Some of them are the remnants of the old guard that raged in the 1990s, the other part are “new Russian decadents”. These so-called. the creators also write about the decline in society and cultural life, about the collapse of the old world and the decay of the era. However, a retrospective look at decadence reveals that this period is always very limited in time. It cannot last long, because it is only a kind of comprehension of the past, a kind of "aftertaste of the era." And the turn of the millennium has already been passed, and, most likely, now it is hardly relevant to talk about the end of a particular era. Decadence went underground again and hid in anticipation of the next decline, followed by a new time.

Decadence is a word of French origin. Denotes the decline, decay, decomposition of the ways of society. As the concept was introduced into use by historians of France in the XIX century.

History of education

Initially, this concept denoted the events that took place in the Roman Empire in the period of the II-IV centuries. Against the backdrop of a decline in the economy, the formation of contradictions in society, a decrease in the level of morality and political contradictions, areas of culture and art are actively developing and flourishing.

Writers, philosophers, artists and musicians of those times promote occultism and mysticism to the masses. Due to dissatisfaction with the current situation in the works, the antiquity is idealized, giving it a romantic tinge. Even the style of conversation in society is returning to the style of the old days.

A striking example of the works of that time is the "Golden Ass" by Apuleius. The work describes the adventures of a representative of the nobility against the background of witchcraft, ironic remarks and immoral eroticism. All this shows how much worse the moral principles of society have become.

Due to the fact that an admixture of the mystical appears in creativity, it can be safely noted that society has tried to renounce everyday life, politics and economic problems. In the works there is a certain force that fulfills the desires of a person, indulges his base impulses.

Later, at the end of the 19th century, similar sentiments struck the masters and philosophers of Europe. There was a new decline in social manifestations, political trends changed. Apathy, sensitivity and painful perception of what is happening settled in the ranks of the creative beau monde. The stories about death, eternal love and the beauty of the surrounding world appeared in the works. The images of the heroes are shocking: undisguised eroticism and sensuality, a mystical view of things, faith in symbolism.

By the end of the 19th century, society was developing at a rapid pace, a lot of information appeared in the minds of people that could be put into practice. So decadence took the form of intricate and veiled manifestations. It can no longer be called a direction of art in full measure - this is the mood of the time.

Manifestation of decadence in art

• Literature within the framework of decadence, it includes trends such as neo-romanticism, modernity and symbolism. The works took on magnificent forms due to sublime epithets, comparative turns and vivid images. The style of writing does not have a specific character: it is melancholy, and an aggressive attitude, and nostalgia. Against the backdrop of social decline, in the poems of Theophile Gauthier, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Varlin, Arthur Rimbaud, the decline of the divine is shown. The prose of decadence is worth studying on the example of Oscar Wilde's Salome. It has erotica, and anxiety of thoughts, and an appeal to biblical myths. In the literature, Charles de Montesquieu, Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, Zinaida Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Valery Bryusov, Fyodor Sologub, Innokenty Annensky, Konstantin Balmont, Nikolai Dobrolyubov are also known.
• Dramaturgy. The desire of each person for a happy life, the search for a path within the framework of being can be traced. The brightest work of those times is The Blue Bird by Maurice Matherlinck.
• Painting. Pictures of that time are drawn with thick colors, people's faces are cold, sad. Here, as in literature, each artist independently chose a style. The works reflected both mythical plots, and biblical scenes and realistic events. Mikhail Vrubel, Romaine Brooks, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Frans von Stuck worked on their works at that time.
• Music. During the period of decadence, myths, fairy tales, ballads, and legends were revised. In the works it became important to express the mood of the new time, the degree of change in life, to renounce the standards. Music for ballet takes on new forms - it now focuses on the costumes, the movements of the characters, and the scenery. Famous are the works of Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Johann Strauss, Alexander Borodin, Igor Stravinsky, Balilla Pratella, Luigi Russolo, Claude Debussy.

Decadence of modernity

In our time, decadence continues to be honored and illuminated for society. At the beginning of the century in St. Petersburg, the prose writer Marusya Klimova and the artist Timur Novikov held the Dark Nights art festival in the style of decadence. Later, this idea was picked up by journalist Vladimir Preobrazhensky and the Boston Tea Party group and held a new Moscow festival.

Contemporary decadence tends to become a separate direction, "Courtful Decadence". It is a community of designers, musicians, dancers, artists, immersed in the atmosphere of esotericism, mysticism, grace, aristocracy. In fact, this is an art house interpretation of decadence.

Terms decadence, decadence to designate a literary movement began to be used in France in the 1880s. and in the 1890s-1900s in Russia, Germany and other countries.

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Emergence

In the 19th century, European and especially French literature was called decadence, first by formidable critics, and then the term was used by the authors themselves. The term referred to late 19th century authors who were associated with the Symbolist and Aesthetic movements and who also combined elements of the earlier Romantic movement with their slightly naive view of nature in their work. Many of these authors were influenced by the traditions of the Gothic novel and the poetry and prose of Edgar Allan Poe.

Although the idea of ​​decadence begins in the 18th century with Montesquieu, later, after Desire Nizard (French Désiré Nisard) - a French writer and critic - it is borrowed and adopted by critics as a term for insulting Victor Hugo and romanticism in general. A later generation of romantic writers, such as Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire, used the word as a sign of pride, as a symbol of their rejection of what they considered "banal progress". In the 1880s, a group of French writers called themselves the Decandents. In Britain, the main figure of decadence was Oscar Wilde.

As a literary movement, decadence is a transitional stage between romanticism and modernism.

Symbolism is often confused with decadence. Several young authors were ironically referred to as decadent in the press of the mid-1880s. Much of Jean Moreau's manifesto was devoted to this very issue and the controversy about it. Some of these authors accepted it and some did not.

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Thrown by criticism hostile to this trend as derogatory, negative, this designation was picked up by its representatives and turned into a slogan. Along with decadence, the terms “modernism”, “neo-romanticism”, “symbolism” are also used to designate this pan-European trend of poetry and art.

Of these terms, "modernism" (from the French moderne - modern, latest) must be discarded for lack of content; "neo-romanticism" should be recognized as insufficient, because it only indicates the typological similarity of this trend in a number of features with the romanticism of the early 19th century, and not its specific features. This term was defended by S. A. Vengerov, “Stages of the neo-romantic movement”.

In addition, along with decadence, the most common term is "symbolism". Some consider these terms equally denoting the same phenomenon. However, they should still be distinguished.

"Symbolism" as a term is broader than the term "decadence", which in fact is one of the varieties of symbolism. The term "symbolism" - an art history category - successfully denotes one of the most important features of the style that arises on the basis of the psyche of decadence. But you can distinguish other styles that arise on the same soil, for example, impressionism. And at the same time, "symbolism" can be freed from decadence, for example, in Russian symbolism.

Sometimes the term "decadence" was also used in a biological sense, meaning pathological signs of psychophysical degeneration in the field of culture (M. Nordau and others). From a sociological point of view, the term decadence is applicable to designate the manifestations of the socio-psychological complex characteristic of any social class that is in decline, especially the descending ruling class, along with which the whole system of social relations is declining (Plekhanov, Art and Social Life).

The characteristic features of decadence are usually considered to be: subjectivism, individualism, amoralism, withdrawal from the public, taedium vitae, etc., which is manifested in art by the corresponding themes, separation from reality, the poetics of art for art's sake, aestheticism, the fall in the value of content, the predominance of form, technical tricks, external effects, styling, etc.

An example in antiquity is the era of the fall of the Roman Empire, etc.

There are words that many people know the meaning of. But if you ask to explain them, you can hear completely different definitions.

Such is the term "decadence" that came from the French language. Many people remember that this beautiful word means decline and decay, and then discrepancies begin among interpreters ...

First - a literary term

At the end of the amazing nineteenth century, humanity began to lose its usual moral and cultural supports. Neoclassicism and romanticism lost their relevance in the race with technical progress and economic reforms, the advent of the new century gave rise to new hopes for some, fear and disappointment for others.

For many authors, gloom and pessimism seemed a natural outcome of historical development. In search of images of the new century, they relied on the aesthetics of the Gothic novel, looking for inspiration in the bewitching world of poetry and prose of Edgar Alan Poe. Decadence is a product of the violent romantics of the past, in particular, the work of Victor Hugo, his search for ideal beauty and pure art in avoiding reality.

For those who, in their poetry, prose, painting and music, found methods that were not similar to the usual classical ones, aggressive criticism came up with a stigma - decadence. No one expected that this word would lose its negative context and be picked up by the decadents themselves to denote the struggle against dull philistinism and banal progress.

Philosophical foundations

The birth of a new philosophy is involved in the emergence of new forms of art at the dawn of the century. The bright ideas of F. Nietzsche and A. Schopenhauer were picked up by the ideologists of decadence. How could they ignore the denial of church and petty-bourgeois morality? In a world where the gods have died, everything is permitted. The rational world order, based on classical philosophy, collapsed, the only value remained - the world of human individuality.

Detachment from the banality of universal human problems - this was the main task of decadence. What did this mean in the work of poets and artists? First of all, the excess of form over content. The meaning was lost in pretentiousness, mysticism, uncertainty. The external effect and vague symbols with apocalyptic, tragic allusions quickly became the main hallmark of the public appearances of the apologists of decadence.

Singers of decadence

They shook the foundations of morality, despised banality in creativity and in everyday life. Oscar Wilde and Maurice Maeterlinck, Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Gabriel D'Annunzio - in their works that attitude to life was born, which was later called "decadence". It was their creative searches and outrageous actions that caused great delight among young people and terrible indignation among the conservative part of Europe.

The visual image of decadence is a pretentious and complex art nouveau pattern, it is inseparable from the virtuoso graphics of Aubrey Beardsley. Pre-Raphaelites - Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, Arthur Hughes - are considered the inspirers of decadence in painting, although not always justified. Arnold Böcklin's painting "Isle of the Dead" expresses the essence of this attitude towards the world. What is decadence in music, one could understand by watching Richard Strauss' opera "Salome" based on the drama by Oscar Wilde. It is full of images and sounds of the "era of decline".

Russian face of decadence

The pretentious and gloomy aesthetics of the death of old values, born in Europe, turned out to be relevant for Russian society during the crisis of the early twentieth century. Russian decadence - what is it if not the product of gloomy moods in society after the Russo-Japanese war and the 1905 revolution? Creative youth shielded themselves from reality with the masks of Pierrot and Colombina, spoke in verse full of abstract and vague symbols.

The poetry of Russian decadence shines with unimaginable peaks. To varying degrees, Valery Bryusov and Konstantin Balmont, Fedor Sologub and Zinaida Gippius, Innokenty Annensky and Igor Severyanin belong to it. They had many imitators in creativity, in clothing and lifestyle - they were too bright and expressive in the life of Russian society.

The prose of Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Leonid Andreev, the paintings and graphics of Konstantin Somov, Mikhail Vrubel and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, the musical experiments of Alexander Scriabin belong to that era both in the time of creation and in the feelings evoked by readers, viewers and listeners.

The main feature of Russian decadence was its inherent mystical foreboding of global upheavals. It is recognizable by a glance from our future and is truly impressive.

Forever living decadent style

The very course of history implies the onset of periods when the ideas of crisis and disintegration become dominant. The creative freedom of innovative artists working in such historical periods, even if used to create gloomy and inhumane images, is a cultural phenomenon of great importance.

Artistic images born on the verge of good and evil are especially expressive, the aesthetics of destruction and even death suddenly become attractive to sensitive natures.

The meaning of the word "decadence" has varied significantly in different times and in different cultures. For some, it had the meaning of a stylistic attribute, for others it became a global characteristic of the state of the whole society. All these definitions are relevant for the past, present and future.