Decadence in Art. Foreword to the thematic issue
Decadence in Art. Foreword to the thematic issue

Summary/Abstract: The articles for this issue of Studies on Art and Architecture were inspired by the Decadence movement and related artistic phenomena. Although individual articles reveal various details associated with the topic, we should start with a short introduction to how the term is, and can be, used in the study of Estonian art. ‘Decadence’ and ‘Decadentism’ have not been considered particularly useful in Estonian-language scholarly texts on art, and it takes some effort to convince sceptical colleagues of their value: rightly so, because the semantic field encompassed by the two terms is frustratingly broad. They are in fact ambiguous terms, capable of spawning even greater ambiguity, but also of describing phenomena surprisingly aptly.

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