Symbolist (style) | DMA Staging Content Management System

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Artists have always made use of symbols, but symbolism took on a new meaning at the end of the 19th century.

Painters and sculptors, as well as writers, became interested in describing a new subject matter. While the impressionists and neo-impressionists had been primarily concerned with painting what they saw and recording the experience of vision itself, a younger generation of artists began to explore subjects drawn not from reality but from a world of imagination, metaphor, and symbols. Their new subjects included dream states, poetry, popular religion, and the macabre.

Symbolism was never an organized movement, and the artists associated with it were stylistically eclectic. For some, an interest in primitive mythologies led to the adoption of the look of folk or tribal art. For others, a heightened realism leant a special power to their fantastical visions. These diverse approaches were unified by the symbolist artists’ common interest in the subjectivity of human experience, the internal experience of emotions, and the power of the imagination to transcend the bonds of material reality.

At around the same time, a group of Parisian art students began to forge their own response to the impressionist tradition. Calling themselves the Nabis, from the Hebrew word for “prophet,” these young artists were led by Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, and Ker Xavier Roussel. The Nabis continued the impressionists’ interest in subjects drawn from modern Parisian life, but they depicted it with flat forms and decorative patterns, creating shallow painted spaces full of pattern and color.

Excerpt from

DMA label text, 2010.

NOTES

A literary and artistic movement from around 1885 to 1910 that rejected the objectivity of realism and naturalism and moved toward subjectivity. Artists in this movement often aimed to suggest ideas by means of ambiguous yet powerful symbols. In addition, their work could be highly reductive and decorative looking.

From the Glossary in Ken Kelsey, Gail Davitt, Carolyn Johnson, Cecilia Leach, Diane McClure, and Catherine Proctor, The Reves Collection at the Dallas Museum of Art, Teaching Packet, 1995.

Education file- quotes on Symbolism: from education file, European Art, docent materials, "Gothic to Vienna Secession" no author, no date

Symbolism

In 1876, the Naturalist writer and critic Emile Zola used the term "symbolism" to

disparage the works presented by Gustave Moreau at the Salon annuel de peinture in

Paris.

"My drawings inspire, and are not definable. They determine nothing. They lead us, like

music, into the ambiguous domain of the undetermined. They are a kind of metaphor."

- Odilon Redan, A soi-meme (pub. 1922)

"My sole aim: to instill in the spectator, by means of quite unexpected allurements, all

the evocations and fascinations of the unknown on the boundaries of thought."

- Odilon Redon, Journal, 1909

"While I recognize the necessity for a basis of observed reality...true art lies in a reality

that is felt."

- Odilon Redon, Le Salon de 1868, La Gironde, May 10, 1868

"Do not paint too much after nature. Art is an abstraction; derive this abstraction from

nature while dreaming before it, and think more of the creation which will result than of

nature."

- Paul Gauguin, letter to Emile Shuffenecker, 1888

"A loosely organized art movement flourishing in the 1880s and 1890s in close

connection with the Symbolist movement in French poetry. It came as a reaction from

the naturalistic aims of Impressionism and still more from the principles of Realism as

formulated by Courbet. The poet Jean Mon~as (1856-1910) published a "Symbolist

Manifesto" in the Figaro of 18 September 1886, in which it was stated that the essential

principle of art is "to clothe the idea in sensuous form." The aim of Symbolism was to

resolve the conflict between the material and the spiritual world. As the Symbolist poets

regarded poetic language primarily as symbolic expression of inner life, so they

demanded of the painters that they should give visual expression to the mystical and the

occult. And as the poets thought there was a close correspondence between the sound

and rhythm of words they used and their meaning, so Symbolist painters thought that

colour and line in themselves could express ideas. Symbolist critics were much given to

drawing parallels between the arts, and Redon's paintings, for example, were compared

with the poetry of Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) and with the music of

Claude Debussy (1862-1918). Thus, the Symbolists streesed the priority of suggestions

and evocation over direct description (or depiction) and explicit analogy.

"Stylistically, Symbolist artists varied greatly. Moreau, for example, painted exotic

pictures of a jewel-like richness, whereas Puvis de Chavannes' murals are pale, serence,

and melancholy. Many artists were inspired by the same kind of imagery as Symbolist

writers (the femme fatale is a common theme), but Gauguin and his followers (Nabis and

Synthetists) chose much less flamboyant subjects, often peasant scenes. Religious feeling

of an intense, mystical kind was a feature of the movement, but so was an interest in the

erotic and the perverse--death, disease, and sin were favourite subjects."

-Ian Chilvers, Harold Osborne, Dennis Farr, The Oxford Dictionary ofArt, p. 484

"...symbolism transcended time and space. Not only did Symbolist thought leap across

borders from Paris to Saint Petersburg and Rome to Berlin, recalling the international

character of Neoclassicism and Romanticism, but it took root in all the arts, involving

poets, like Baudelaire and D'Annunzio, composers like Wagner, Franck, and Debussy,

painters like Moreau, Redon, Munch, and Segantini, and sculptors like Rodin."

- "What is Symbolism?" from Symbolist Europe: Lost Paradise, The Montreal

Museum of Fine Arts, June 8-0ctober 15, 199, p. 2

"The Symbolist artist does not depict what he sees, but transfers feelings and ideas into

visual form. More than a movement or style delimited in time, Symbolism is a state of

mind."

. - Guy Cogeval, Director of the Musee national des Monuments fran~ais in Paris

"Symbolism is an answer, or an attempt to answer, the fin-de siecle sense of disquiet. In

the decorative arts of the period, we see a kind of escapism in the search for new forms

and new materials - previous or unexpected - which are of value not only in themselves,

but for what they call to mind."

- Rosalind Pepall, Curator of Canadian Decorative Arts at the Montreal Museum

of Fine Arts

Maurice Maeterlinck made an interesting attempt to translate the aims of the symbolist

poets into dramatic form. His Pelleas et Melisande brings about a synthesis of the

material world and the world of the imagination. In it, he denies the importance of

external events and explores the quiet vibrations of the soul. He writes, "Beneath all

human thoughts, volitions, passions, actions, there lies the ocean of the Unconscious, the

unknown source of all that is good, true, and beautiful." [The symbolists looked to new

discoveries in psychology--the unconscious and Freud]

-William Fleming, Arts & Ideas, p. 400

"To name an object is to take away three-quarters of the pleasure from a poem that is

meant for gradual discovery. A suggestion, that is to dream. It is the perfect usage of

this memory which constitutes the symbol: evoking an object little by little, revealing a

mood or, on the contrary, choosing and sounding out a mood through a series of

interpretations."

-Stephane Mallarme, Symbolist poet

"Suggestion supposes that the object is not completely revealed; and in this way, the

Symbolist artist shows the precise moment at which the object seems to break away from

the mass that constrains and determines it; it is almost as if the same object creates an

environment in order to conceal itself. The result is the decorative domain of the dream

which speculates upon the spiral, the curve, the serpentine line, the fusion of animal and

vegetable, etc." -Guy Cogeval, From Courbet to Cezanne: A New 19th Century, p. 93

Fantasies: A Selection of Symbolist Works on Paper

Works on paper gallery- installed 2010

Symbolist art makes visible the invisible. In the late nineteenth century a group of writers and artists mined the human subconscious to craft a new philosophy. These artists reacted against the commercialization and subsequent cultural homogenization caused by the Industrial Revolution. Many rejected conventional lifestyles and lived outside society. Their new Symbolist philosophy provided a framework to experiment with formal styles that would match their subjective perspectives.

Symbolist artists created otherworldly narratives using atypical colors, enigmatic forms, incoherent space, and decorative elements to portray feelings, dreams, and truths. Symbolist images, like the prints shown here, are intended to make tangible mystical experiences or musings. Unlike realist or impressionist art, Symbolist works are not meant to be illusions of reality but glimpses at the forces underlying nature and society.

Symbolism emerged from Romanticism and was an important precedent for Surrealism, abstraction, and Expressionism. Whether illustrating literature, characterizing a landscape, or exploring the subconscious, the prints in this gallery step beyond objective representation. Collectively, each work is united by the Symbolist effort to present unique visions.

Labels from TAZ- Curatorial- European Intern 09-10

Brittany Luberda, McDermott Curatorial Intern for American and European Art, 2009-2010

SYMBOLISM:

• Anti-naturalism

• Clothe the idea in tangible form

• Suggestive, evocative, the mysterious, nuances, inner life

• Spiritual, dream-like, hallucinations

• Objectify the subjective

• Yearning for the remote, for earlier, possibly more primitive times

• Connection with the poetry movement at the time

"European Art Recap: Main Points" document from European education files

ASSOCIATED CONTENT CHUNKS

Nabis

AUDIO ASSETS

Symbolist art in Reves collection---lecture 1996 13314055: UMO

VIDEO ASSETS

IMAGE ASSETS

1983.52.FA 283128086: UMO

WEB RESOURCES

The Norton Anthology, Western Literature~Learn more about Symbolism in art and literature.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York~Read this essay by Nicole Myers to learn more about Symbolism.

ARCHIVAL RESOURCES

FUN FACTS

TEACHING IDEAS

RULES

apply to content where content contains symbolist

apply to objects where date_begin gte 1880

apply to objects where date_end lte 1920

apply to objects where department_id equals 4

apply to objects where classification_name equals paintings

General Description

Artists have always made use of symbols, but symbolism took on a new meaning at the end of the 19th century.

Painters and sculptors, as well as writers, became interested in describing a new subject matter. While the impressionists and neo-impressionists had been primarily concerned with painting what they saw and recording the experience of vision itself, a younger generation of artists began to explore subjects drawn not from reality but from a world of imagination, metaphor, and symbols. Their new subjects included dream states, poetry, popular religion, and the macabre.

Symbolism was never an organized movement, and the artists associated with it were stylistically eclectic. For some, an interest in primitive mythologies led to the adoption of the look of folk or tribal art. For others, a heightened realism leant a special power to their fantastical visions. These diverse approaches were unified by the symbolist artists’ common interest in the subjectivity of human experience, the internal experience of emotions, and the power of the imagination to transcend the bonds of material reality.

At around the same time, a group of Parisian art students began to forge their own response to the impressionist tradition. Calling themselves the Nabis, from the Hebrew word for “prophet,” these young artists were led by Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, and Ker Xavier Roussel. The Nabis continued the impressionists’ interest in subjects drawn from modern Parisian life, but they depicted it with flat forms and decorative patterns, creating shallow painted spaces full of pattern and color.

Excerpt from

DMA label text, 2010.

Fun Facts

Archival Resources

Web Resources

The Norton Anthology, Western Literature~Learn more about Symbolism in art and literature.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York~Read this essay by Nicole Myers to learn more about Symbolism.

Notes