Review: Mystical Symbolism: The Salon de la Rose + Croix in Paris, 1892–1897, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 30 June – 4 October 2017, and Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 28 October – 7 January 2018

Abstract

This exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City is the first by a major museum (or any museum) to present those works displayed in the several salons staged by Joséphin Péladan (1858–1918), the decadent symbolist eccentric who styled himself Sâr Merodack, leader of L’Ordre de RoseXCroix du Temple et du Graal, the secret fraternal society Péladan established after a falling out with the occult poet Stanislas de Guaïta, head of a Rosicrucian sect. It is probably best not to ask how the esoteric system of the RXC differs from ‘orthodox’ Rosicrucianism. Historically, the Rosicrucian Brotherhood dates from 1614, when Fama Fraternitatis, dess Löblichen Ordens des Rosenkreutzes [The Declaration of the Worthy Order of the Rosy Cross] was published at Kassel, Germany. This book claimed that one Christian Rosenkreuz, whose life spanned the fin-de-siècle period between the 14th and 15th centuries, founded the secret order after a journey to the East. Two more books about the secret adventures of Herr Rosenkreuz appeared, the last and weirdest being Die Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreutz [The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz] (1616).