Bouzingo
Related: avant-gardes - French culture
Description
I gather that the influence of the Bouzingo movement is exaggerated in this Wikipedia article:The Bouzingo were a group of eccentric poets, novelists, and artists in France during the 1830’s that practiced an extreme form of romanticism whose influence helped determine the course of culture in the 20th century including such movements as bohemianism, parnassianism, symbolism, decadence, aestheticism, dadaism, surrealism, the lost generation the beat generation, hippies, punk rock, etc.
Bouzingoism is the spirit of revolution, a revolution against the ascendancy of power by the philistine bourgeoisie. This spirit was embodied in the “art for art’s sake” creed of Théophile Gautier, in the eccentricities and the poetry of Gérard de Nerval, by the lycanthropy and dark irony of Petrus Borel, and by those who gathered around them known as the Bouzingo. They were a decadent and radical offshoot of romanticism and represented an unabashed taste for vampirism, shocking offenses, and self-styled satanism. They considered themselves a thorn in the side of the bourgeoisie meant to aggravate and irritate polite society. They roamed the streets making a scene wherever they went. They had long hair and grew moustaches and beards. They dressed with an air of ironic aristocracy to spite and mock the bourgeoisie.
They were fanatical extremists who delved heavily in the occult, black humor, dream/nightmare, and imagination inspired by Cervantes from Spain, Schiller and Goethe from Germany, Lord Byron and Shelley (the “satanic poets” of English Romanticism), and Emanuel Swedenborg (the 18th century Swedish occultist). They experimented with drugs and took their Romantic idealism to extremes. Although the Bouzingos have been obscured in the history of literature and art, there is no disputing their invaluable influence in the construction of modernism. Credit to the Bouzingos can be found in writings from Baudelaire to the Surrealists and are credited to the origins of the avant-garde. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouzingo [Jun 2006]
Question: Which art movements need capitalization. See this discussion on Wikipedia.
For references to this movement there is some info in On Bohemia by César Graña, Marigay Graña, 1990 - Chapter: Bouzingos and Jeunes-France pp. 365-369., more info on César Graña at the bourgeois page.
See also: bohemia - counterculture through the ages