Symbolism: Understand the Art Movement in 3 Minutes

Imagine an artistic movement where canvases become portals to dreamlike worlds, where every brushstroke is an incantation and every color a mystery to decipher. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Symbolism in painting — the 19th-century style that said "no thank you" to realism and preferred to high-five the imagination!

Symbolism in Painting: A Quick Definition

So what exactly is pictorial Symbolism? It is an artistic movement born in the 1880s that decided to turn its back on the material world in order to explore the mysterious territories of the soul, dream, and myth. These artists, true poets of the brush, chose to suggest rather than show, to inspire reverie rather than describe. In short, it is the art of transforming your canvas into a visual enigma that would make the Sphinx itself green with envy!

Why Symbolism Shook the Art of the 19th Century

Picture the scene: it is the end of the 19th century. Science is making giant leaps, industry is running at full steam, and art... well, academic art is quietly purring away in its corner, even if Art Nouveau is about to change the game. It is in this context that Symbolism arrives, like a rebellious teenager at a dinner party.

The Symbolist painters had had enough of the prevailing materialism and the positivism that reigned supreme. They decided to say "stop" to mere representation of reality and "hello" to exploring the depths of the human soul. It was rather as though art had decided to hold a collective therapy session, but with brushes instead of words!

The Masters of the Symbolist Brush: The Dream Team of Oneiric Art

Who were these artists who dared to defy conventions to take us on a journey through the meanderings of the unconscious? Allow me to introduce a few of these tormented geniuses:

• Gustave Moreau: The undisputed king of French Symbolism. His canvases are like visual puzzles where every detail is a clue to understanding the great mystery of existence. His "Oedipus and the Sphinx" is a veritable festival of mystery and sensuality.
• Odilon Redon: The master of dreamlike visions. His strange creatures and fantastical landscapes seem to come straight from a feverish dream. It is said that he painted with a third eye open to the invisible!
• Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: The master of spare, silent compositions. His frescoes in pale colors have a certain "zen" quality before the term even existed. He is the ideal painter for meditation... or for decorating a Greek temple.
• Edvard Munch: The tormented Norwegian, famous for "The Scream." If you want to know what existential anguish looks like on canvas, he is your man!

The Themes of the Symbolists: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities of the Soul

Our Symbolist friends had their own little obsessions — recurring themes that appeared in their abstract works like a persistent refrain:

• Dream and the unconscious: Long before Freud started delving into our neuroses, the Symbolists were already plunging into the murky waters of the unconscious. Their canvases are like windows opening onto a dreamlike world where anything is possible.
• Mythology and the sacred: Greek gods, angels, demons... all this little world mingles freely in the Symbolist universe. It is rather like a divine family reunion, but considerably more stylish.
• The femme fatale: Ah, woman! By turns angel and demon, the Symbolists made her a central character, often depicted as a mysterious and dangerous creature. Salome, for example, causes havoc throughout their works!
• Melancholy and death: Not exactly the embodiment of joie de vivre, Symbolism! Death, spleen, and melancholy are ever-present. It is something like the pictorial equivalent of listening to Radiohead on a rainy day.
• Mystical nature: For the Symbolists, nature is not merely a pretty backdrop. It is a living temple, full of correspondences and mysteries. Every tree, every flower is potentially a coded message from the beyond.

The Tips and Tricks of the Symbolist Painters: How to Transform Your Canvas into an Interdimensional Portal

How did these wizards of the canvas manage to transport us into their imaginary worlds? Here are a few of their pictorial tricks of the trade:

• Simplification of forms: Out with superfluous details! The Symbolists preferred to strip their compositions down to the essentials. It is a bit like going on a diet, but for shapes.
• The use of unnatural colors: Why settle for a blue sky when you can paint it purple? The Symbolists played with colors the way a DJ plays with turntables, creating unique and evocative atmospheres.
• The use of symbols: Obviously! A lily for purity, a skull for death, a mirror for narcissism... An entire visual language developed — like an illustrated dictionary of emotions and ideas.
• The importance of line: Outlines are often pronounced, creating clean and elegant forms. It is something like a return to drawing after the great Impressionist party.
• The dreamlike atmosphere: Soft focus, strange perspectives, improbable juxtapositions... anything goes to create an atmosphere of dream (or nightmare, depending on taste).

Symbolism Across Europe: An Artistic Epidemic That Conquered the Continent

Symbolism is a bit like a trail of gunpowder that spread across Europe. Each country added its own personal touch, as in a great continental culinary recipe:

• In France, the cradle of the movement, we find the great names such as Moreau, Redon, and the Nabis (a merry band who pushed Symbolism towards abstraction).
• In Belgium, Fernand Khnopff and James Ensor practiced Symbolism with a hint of Surrealism before the term existed. It is rather as though Magritte had artistic great-grandfathers.
• In England, the Pre-Raphaelites, with their revisited medieval aesthetic, paved the way for Symbolism. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones are the undisputed stars.
• In the Nordic countries, Symbolism takes on darker, more tormented accents. Edvard Munch in Norway, and Hugo Simberg in Finland, plunge us into icy and anguishing universes.
• In Central Europe, Gustav Klimt and his Vienna Secession give Symbolism the appearance of an Art Nouveau jewel. It is Symbolism in its champagne and sequins version!

The Legacy of Symbolism: When Modern Art Says Thank You to Its Dreamlike Forebears

Symbolism is not just a dusty old story from the 19th century. Its influence has been felt far beyond its own era, like a benevolent ghost haunting the history of art:

• Surrealism owes it a great deal. André Breton, the pope of Surrealism, acknowledged his debt to the Symbolists. Without them, Dali might never have made his clocks melt!
• Abstract art drew on the Symbolist idea that art could express ideas beyond mere representation. Kandinsky surely took notes while looking at Redon.
• Expressionism, with its exploration of intense emotions, is a direct offspring of Symbolism. One could say it is Symbolism that drank too much coffee.
• Even contemporary art, with its taste for concept and symbol, carries the DNA of Symbolism. It is as though Gustave Moreau had great-grandchildren at the Venice Biennale!

Symbolism, or the Art of Making You Dream Even with Your Eyes Open

Symbolism is far more than a simple artistic movement. It is an invitation to an inner journey, a plunge into the depths of the human soul, an exploration of the unknown territories of the imagination. These artists dared to defy conventions to offer us an art that speaks directly to our unconscious, that sets vibrating the secret strings of our sensibility.

So the next time you find yourself face to face with a Symbolist canvas, don't merely look at it. Let yourself be hypnotized, dream, imagine. Who knows — you may discover unsuspected worlds, hidden in the folds of a drapery or in the brilliance of a painted gaze.

To Go Further: Dive into the Symbolist Universe

• Visit the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, a veritable temple of Symbolism with its collections of Moreau, Redon, and company.
• Explore the work of William Blake, the English precursor of Symbolism who married poetry and painting like no one else.
• In continuity with the introspection characteristic of the Romantic movement, Symbolism pushes still further the exploration of the unconscious and emotion. The Symbolist painters drew on mysterious themes and a dreamlike atmosphere, partly inheriting the passion and lyricism proper to Romanticism.
• Read "Against Nature" (À rebours) by Joris-Karl Huysmans, the quintessential decadent novel, which inspired many Symbolist painters.
• Listen to "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" by Debussy — the musical equivalent of a canvas by Redon.

Symbolism is an entire world to explore. So, are you ready for the great plunge into the pictorial unconscious?