fin de siecle
Era's waning days
Fin de siècle is French for "end of century," referring specifically to the close of the 19th century and its cultural mood—a mix of world-weariness, decadence, and artistic experimentation.
The term evokes the aestheticism and moral ambiguity of the 1890s: fin de siècle Vienna, a fin de siècle sensibility.
It can describe anything with that flavor of elegant exhaustion or overripe sophistication.
- NihilismDoctrine rejecting all authority
- AestheticismDoctrine elevating beauty above morality
- SymbolismArt emphasizing ideas over reality
- ModernismBreak from traditional forms
- gilded ageFlashy era hiding corruption
Oscar Wilde · Gustav Klimt · Art Nouveau · Marcel Proust · Claude Debussy · Moulin Rouge · Impressionism · Charles Baudelaire · Edvard Munch · Mysticism · Existentialism · Vienna Secession · Surrealism · Romanticism · Utopianism · ennui
fin de sieclenew beginning
Chance to start again
fresh start · nascent · genesis · renaissance · new dawn
fin de siecleoptimism
Tendency to expect good
vitality · exuberance · innocence · naiveté · robust
fin de siecleGilded Age
Late 1800s American prosperity
Roaring Twenties · Victorian · Edwardian · modernism · avant-garde
fin, final, finale, finality, finally, finish, finite, infinite, define