Symbolism
Started: 1880
Ended: 1910
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KEY ARTISTS
 | Paul Gauguin Quick View Artist Page |
| Paul Gauguin |  |
| Paul Gauguin was a French Post-Impressionist artist who employed color fields and painterly strokes in his work. He is best known for his primitivist depictions of native life in Tahiti and Polynesia. Art Story: Paul Gauguin Artist Page | ||
 | James Whistler Quick View Artist Page |
| James Whistler | |
| James Whistler was a nineteenth-century American expatriate artist. Educated in France and later based in London, Whistler was a famous proponent of art-for-art's-sake, and an esteemed practictioner of tonal harmony in his canvases, often characterized by his masterful use of blacks and greys, as seen in his most famous work, Whistler's Mother (1871). Whistler was also known as an American Impressionist, and in 1874 he famously turned down an invitation from Degas to exhibit his work with the French Impressionists. Art Story: James Whistler Artist Page | ||
 | Gustave Moreau Quick View Artist Page |
| Gustave Moreau | |
| Gustave Moreau was the quintessential French Symbolist painter who depicted narrative moments and figures from classical mythology and biblical history. Art Story: Gustave Moreau Artist Page | ||
 | Odilon Redon Quick View Artist Page |
| Odilon Redon | |
| Odilon Redon was a French Symbolist artist whose paintings, prints, and pastel works frequently include elements like cyclopses, centaurs, and abstract floral designs in atmospheric settings. He was an inpiration to many modern artists, including the Surrealists. Art Story: Odilon Redon Artist Page | ||
 | Aubrey Beardsley Quick View Artist Page |
| Aubrey Beardsley | |
| Aubrey Beardsley was a nineteenth-century English illustrator and author. In black ink he created highly erotic, grotesque, and decadant drawings, much in the style of Japanese woodcuts. Beardsley's work was part of the Aesthetic movement, and was highly influential to the subsequent Art Nouveau movement of the early-twentieth century. Art Story: Aubrey Beardsley Artist Page | ||
 | Edvard Munch Quick View Artist Page |
| Edvard Munch | |
| Norweigan painter and printmaker Edvard Munch was a pioneer of the German Expressionist movement. His works such as The Scream explored deeply psychological concepts in a Symbolist style. Art Story: Edvard Munch Artist Page | ||
"In this art, scenes from nature, human activities, and all other real world phenomena will not be described for their own sake; here, they are perceptible surfaces created to represent their esoteric affinities with the primordial Ideals."
Summary of Symbolism
As opposed to Impressionism, in which the emphasis was on the reality of the created paint surface itself, Symbolism was both an artistic and a literary movement that suggested ideas through symbols and emphasized the meaning behind the forms, lines, shapes, and colors. The works of some of its proponents exemplify the ending of the tradition of representational art coming from Classical times. Symbolism can also be seen as being at the forefront of modernism, in that it developed new and often abstract means to express psychological truth and the idea that behind the physical world lay a spiritual reality. Symbolists could take the ineffable, such as dreams and visions, and give it form.
Key Ideas
Saying, "I paint ideas, not things," George Frederick Watts became a leading Symbolist. He said his allegorical Hope (1886) was meant, "to suggest great thoughts which will speak to the imagination and the heart."
Important Art and Artists of Symbolism | |
  | Jupiter and Semele (1895)Artist: Gustave Moreau Artwork description & Analysis: This painting illustrates the myth that tells of the love between Jupiter, the divine king of the gods, and Semele (the embodiment of that which is earthly), who upon the suggestion of Jupiter's wife Juno, asks Jupiter to make love to her in his divine radiance. Jupiter cannot resist the temptation of her beauty, with the acknowledgment that she will be consumed by his light and the fire of his divinity (he is crowned with thunderbolts). Thus the painting is symbolic of humanity's union with the divine that ends in death. However, as the artist wrote, "all is transformed, purified, idealized. Immortality begins, the Divine pervades everything." Themes of death, corruption, and resurrection all make their appearance. As in this painting, Moreau followed the example of Wagner's music, composing pictures in the style of symphonic poems in their richness of detail and color, although that same characteristic prevented him from emphasizing the more modern aspects of Symbolism. The artist expressed himself in a more traditional style, but true to Symbolism, meaning evolves from the forms themselves; humanity is small-scaled and vulnerable in its fleshy voluptuousness. The androgynous figure of Jupiter suggests the isolation of the dreaming artist and the life of ideas. Moreau, central to any discussion of Symbolism, contributed to the more literary aspects of Symbolism, choosing his subjects from the Bible or, as here, mythology - at the same time that he was able to point out some of the neuroses of the modern age. Oil on canvas - Gustave Moeau Museum, Paris |
 | The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity (1882)Artist: Odilon Redon Artwork description & Analysis: Although Edgar Allan Poe had been dead for 33 years at the time of Redon's lithograph and both Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé had translated his writings between 1852 and 1872, this is not an illustrated narrative of Poe's work; instead, it is parallel to it in its evocation of the macabre world of the writer. The single eye - the all-seeing eye of God - is an old symbol, but is here transformed. The large scale of the eye is the symbol of the spirit rising up out of the dead matter of the swamp. It is a physical organ that looks upward toward the divine, taking with it the dead skull. The aura of light surrounding the main image helps express the idea of the supernatural, as does the nebulous space. The work evokes a sense of mystery within a dream world. However, Redon's works should not be confused with Surrealism, for they are meant to create a coherent, specific idea - the head as the origin of the imagination and the spirit lodged in matter. Lithograph - Museum of Modern Art, New York |
 | Death and the Masks (1897)Artist: James Ensor Artwork description & Analysis: Ensor imparts lifelike qualities to the skull of Death in the center, with its chilling grin, and to the masks of the people; the mask becomes the face, and yet it is still a mask that tries to cover up the spiritual hollowness of the bourgeoisie and the decadence of the times. The crowded composition suggests that this is a pervasive problem and that the painting is the artist's critique of contemporary society. Ensor had an interest in masks because his mother owned a souvenir shop selling such articles as these papier mache masks worn at carnival time in Belgium. Ensor desired a return to the "pure and natural" local carnivals and festivals of his native Belgium with a view toward creating cultural unity, but realized that tourism, commercialization, and industrialization would prevent that from happening. Oil on canvas - Musée royal des beaux-arts de Liège |
More Symbolism Artwork and Analysis:
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First published on 05 Dec 2014. Updated and modified regularly. 
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