Symbolism (arts)

late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil, 1857) by Charles Baudelaire. The works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images.

La mort du fossoyeur ("The death of the gravedigger") by Carlos Schwabe is a visual compendium of symbolist motifs. Death and angels, pristine snow, and the dramatic poses of the characters all express symbolist longings for transfiguration "anywhere, out of the world."

Quotes

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  • In literature and in art, alike, this gloomy fashion of regarding Death has been characteristic of Christianity. Death has been painted as a skeleton grasping a scythe, a grinning skull, a threatening figure with terrible face and uplifted dart, a bony scarecrow shaking an hourglass - all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named King of Terrors.
  • Comment voyez-vous cet arbre? Il est bien vert? Mettez donc du vert, le plus beau vert de votre palette; — et cette ombre, plutôt bleue? Ne craignez pas la peindre aussi bleue que possible.
    • How do you see this tree? Is it really green? Use green, then, the most beautiful green on your palette. And that shadow, rather blue? Don't be afraid to paint it as blue as possible.
      • Paul Gauguin Said in conversation with Paul Sérusier as quoted by Maurice Denis, "L'influence de Paul Gauguin," in Occident (October 1903) and published in Du symbolisme au classicisme. Théories (1912), ed. Olivier Revault d'Allonnes (Paris, 1964), p. 51
  • Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,
    Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
    – Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,

    Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,
    Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,
    Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.
    • There are perfumes that are fresh like children's flesh,
      sweet like oboes, green like meadows
      – And others, corrupt, rich, and triumphant,

      having the expansiveness of infinite things,
      like amber, musc, benzoin, and incense,
      which sing of the raptures of the soul and senses.
    • Charles Baudelaire Correspondences
  • Take the birds which you'll have noticed in so many of my recent paintings. I never thought them up, they just materialized of their own accord; they were born on the canvas... it is absurd to read any sort of symbolic significance into them.
  • If a symbol should be discovered in a painting of mine, it was not my intention. It is a result I did not seek. It is something that may be found afterwards, and which can be interpreted according to taste.
  • When you are going to paint a bamboo, you must first realize the thing completely in your mind. Then grasp the brush, fix your attention so that you see clearly what you wish to paint; start quickly, move the brush, follow straight what you see before you, as the buzzard swoops down when the hare jumps out. If you hesitate one moment, it is gone.
  • Ainsi, dans cet art, les tableaux de la nature, les actions des humains, tous les phénomènes concrets ne sauraient se manifester eux-mêmes ; ce sont là des apparences sensibles destinées à représenter leurs affinités ésotériques avec des Idées primordiales.
    • 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.
    • Jean Moréas "Le Manifeste du Symbolisme" (The Symbolist Manifesto) in Le Figaro, 18 September 1886: Translation in: Mara C. West (2007) Edvard Munch's "To the Forest": Nature as Medium and Metaphor. p. 36
  • When seen as a whole, art derives from a person’s desire to communicate himself to another. I do not believe in an art which is not forced into existence by a human being’s desire to open his heart. All art, literature, and music must be born in your heart’s blood. Art is your heart’s blood.
    • Edvard Munch Manuscript (1891), quoted in Edvard Munch and the Physiology of Symbolism (2002) by Shelley Wood Cordulack
  • A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu : voyelles. . .
    • A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels. . .
    • Arthur Rimbaud Voyelles
  • Between the image of the Imagist and the 'symbol' of the Symbolists there is a difference only of precision'
    • René Taupin L'Influence du symbolism francais sur la poesie Americaine(de 1910 a 1920), Champion, Paris 1929 trans William Pratt and Anne Rich AMS , New York 1985 ISBN 9780404615796

See also

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Art movements
  Medieval   Byzantine · Merovingian · Carolingian · Ottonian · Romanesque · Gothic (International Gothic)
  Renaissance   Early Netherlandish · High Renaissance · Mannerism
  17th century   Baroque · Caravaggisti · Classicism · Dutch Golden Age
  18th century   Rococo · Neoclassicism · Romanticism
  19th century   Nazarene · Realism / Realism · Historicism · Biedermeier · Gründerzeit · Barbizon school · Pre-Raphaelites · Academic · Aestheticism · Macchiaioli · Art Nouveau · Peredvizhniki · Impressionism · Post-Impressionism · Neo-impressionism · Divisionism · Pointillism · Cloisonnism · Les Nabis · Synthetism · Kalighat painting · Symbolism · Hudson River School
  20th century   Bengal School of Art · Amazonian pop art · Cubism · Orphism · Purism · Synchromism · Expressionism · Constructivism · Scuola Romana · Abstract expressionism · Kinetic art · Neue Künstlervereinigung München · Der Blaue Reiter · Die Brücke · New Objectivity · Dada · Fauvism · Neo-Fauvism · Precisionism · Bauhaus · De Stijl · Art Deco · Op art · Vienna School of Fantastic Realism · Pop art · Photorealism · Futurism · Metaphysical art · Rayonism · Vorticism · Suprematism · Surrealism · Color Field · Minimalism · Minimalism (visual arts) · Art & Language · Nouveau réalisme · Social realism · Lyrical abstraction · Tachisme · COBRA · Action painting · International Typographic Style · Fluxus · Lettrism · Letterist International · Situationist International · Conceptual art · Installation art · Land art · Performance art · Endurance art · Systems art · Video art · Neo-expressionism · Neo-Dada · Outsider art · Lowbrow · New media art · Young British Artists · Cybernetic art
  21st century   Art intervention · Hyperrealism · Neo-futurism · Stuckism International · Remodernism · Sound art · Superstroke · Superflat · Relational art · Video game art
  Related topics   List of art movements · Folk art · Abstract art · Modern art · Modernism · Late modernism · Late modernism · Postmodern art · Avant-garde · Graffiti