author
Joséphin Péladan
1859–1918
A flamboyant Symbolist novelist and self-styled mystic, he turned literature, criticism, and even his public image into part of the same grand artistic performance. Best known for the Salon de la Rose+Croix, he became one of the most unusual literary figures in fin-de-siècle France.
1 Audiobook
L'art ochlocratique: salons de 1882 & de 1883
by Joséphin Péladan
About the author
Born in Lyon in 1858 and active in Paris, Joséphin Péladan was a French novelist, critic, and occult-minded public figure closely linked with Symbolist culture. He wrote fiction and essays, adopted the title "Sâr," and built a reputation not just through books but through a theatrical persona that made him hard to ignore.
He is especially remembered for founding the Salon de la Rose+Croix, a series of exhibitions that brought together painters, writers, and musicians who shared his ideal of spiritually serious, anti-materialist art. That project made him an important presence in the artistic world of the 1890s, where his taste, manifestos, and larger-than-life style drew both admiration and ridicule.
Péladan died in 1918. Today he remains a fascinating figure for readers interested in Symbolism, decadence, occult thought, and the many ways literature and performance overlapped at the end of the nineteenth century.