SYMBOLISM ART

1880 - 1910

By the late 1800s the push away from Realism was already well underway. Aesthetically, artists had moved beyond the need for highly realistic images. Already color, shapes and lines had become increasingly important. However, the subject matter of paintings remained realistic. Cezanne may have painted Mont Sainte Victoire in an almost abstract manner, but it was still a mountain. Symbolists made it into something else. They made subject matter abstract by searching for psychological truths. Lines, colors, shapes, forms and images became symbols in a search for meaning.

The Art Story lists Symbolist subject matter as a combination of “religious mysticism, the perverse, the erotic, and the decadent." Going on to add that Symbolism is "typically characterized by an interest in the occult, the morbid, the dream world, melancholy, evil, and death.” Much of the Symbolist fascination with the female body and eroticism is echoed in the Art Nouveau movement taking place at roughly the same time.

It is interesting to view Symbolism as a bridge between the Romantics of the early 1800s and the Expressionists of the early 1900s. By injecting emotion, dreams and psychological exploration into their art, the Symbolists created a direct path from Impressionistic experimentation to Cubistic abstraction to mind-bending Surrealism.