Symbolism
In the visual arts, Symbolism is the term used to designate modes of aesthetic expression that make use of symbolic meanings and vehicles for expression. Symbolism often designates a style in painting and literature that was prevalent between 1885 and 1920. Symbolism can only be viewed as an autonomous style in art in a limited sense because what linked its exponents in painting and literature tended to be merely similarities in their general take on life and limited to the meaning behind motifs. In addition, most painters known as Symbolists were only assigned to the movement posthumously. The term "Symbolism" was first used in 1886 by Jean Moréas in an article in the newspaper "Le Figaro" to France to define a literary movement, specifically in lyric poetry. Its leading exponents were Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Verlaine and Rimbaud. In the visual arts, by contrasts, the roots of Symbolism go back at least as far as the 18th century. Dream, suggestion and obsession play an important role in the works of such different artists as Goya, William Blake and Johann Heinrich Füssli. Symbolism is concerned with the world of imagination and dream rather than reality. This approach also surfaced from the mid-19th century in the work of the English Pre-Raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Holman Hunt and Edward Burne-Jones. Symbolist artists found Realism lacking in the psychic and spiritual depth which they felt art should express. References and symbols were drawn on to express ideas. Motifs taken from religion and antiquity were re-interpreted. Woman qua femme fatale who represented an existential threat to men played a particular role in Symbolism. At the close of the 19th century, Symbolism reveals numerous parallels with Jugendstil/Art Nouveau. In some of its facets, however, Symbolism is forerunner of Expressionism, which followed on it. Further, the Symbolists can also be called precursors of Surrealism. The following are regarded as Symbolist artists:
Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901)
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)
Maurice Denis (1870-1943)
Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921)
Max Klinger (1857-1920)
Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) ("Salomé")
Edvard Munch (1863-1944) ("The Scream")
Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899)
Franz von Stuck (1863-1928)
Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel (1814-1876)
Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940)
