Aesthetic Experience in Music Salons during the Fin de Siècle

Salon of the Brajković Family in Perast

Abstract

The paper explores the potentialities of musical and visual experience in bourgeois salons of the fin de siècle. In response to the evolving musical experience within private spaces, where instrumental performances were believed to elicit individual contemplation, music salons of the late 19th century were organised in line with the principles of an aesthetic experience that unified auditory and visual perception. The case study in this paper is the salon of the Brajković family in Perast, Bay of Kotor, one of the rare music salons from the late 19th century that has preserved its original decor to the present day. The paper examines the visual manifestation of music in this space, its iconographic features and representative value, drawing upon insights and approaches from art history, as well as the history of music, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. The objective has been to analyse the meaning, role, and value of music salons as distinctive aesthetic and conceptual spaces present in the Bay of Kotor at the close of the 19th century.