Serpentinisme in French Art of the Second Half of the XIXth Century

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of the medical institutions' influence on the modification of the plot about the Eve's sin in the second half of the XIXth century. In 1896, the inventor of the graphic pun, Henri Avelot, created the caricature "Four arts", singling out "serpentinisme" among artistic trends (such as symbolism). Using this neologism, the cartoonist criticized contemporary art of his time that borrowed physical manifestations of pathologies (for example, hysteria) to create "innovative" art concepts and works. Analyzing major masters' artworks of this period with "serpentine" movements, it can be traced how the development of the health cult and the strengthening of the disciplinary power of hospitals started the process of aestheticizing diseases. As a result, three new iconographic types appeared in French culture: the snake woman; the "Eve's daughter"; the woman and the "phallic serpent", in which the serpent appears as an allegorical embodiment of a doctor. The snake woman image became an aesthetic ideal that permeated all aspects of culture, which was expressed in the neologism "serpentinisme", which ironically brought this trend closer to the artistic direction.