Symbolism Art Movement – Characteristics

How to identify Symbolist art (1880-1910)? Explore Five Features

Feature 1:
Symbolist paintings are dim, nightmarish scenes where artistic imagination is overtaken by the morbid and the macabre. The visions are otherworldly and mystical. You’ll find haunting, mysterious figures, evil women, supernatural monsters and demons, and imagery of sex and death. The atmosphere is always unsettling and gloomy.

Symbolism vs. Romanticism: Although both Romantic and Symbolist artists had an interest in mysticism and horrific visions, they differed on multiple points. The Romantics had a fascination with nature and how we’ve become alienated from it. The Symbolists were not interested in that. As for the violent, dream-like scenes of Romantic art, unlike the Symbolist ones, they were moments of action – heavily dramatic. They were also rebellious and often contained a political message. On the other hand, the Symbolist figures are statuesque, eternally suspended in motion against haunting landscapes.

Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin

In this painting an oarsman is slowly rowing towards a small, desolate islet with openings that suggest of sepulchres. On the boat, there’s a draped coffin and a mysterious, statuesque figure shrouded in white. The atmosphere evokes feelings of gloominess and other-worldliness.

The Wounded Angel by Hugo Simberg
This Finnish masterpiece inspired a music video by fellow countrymen and women of heavy metal band Nightwish

The Dream by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
In this painting, Love, Wealth and Glory appear to a sleeping traveler.

Madam Stuart Merrill – Mysteriosa by Jean Delville

Feature 2:
As the name of the art movement implies, the paintings display objects–symbols–that represent abstract ideas. For example, the terrifying angel in The Death of the Grave Digger (below) symbolizes death. Most of the symbolism referred to death, decadence and debauchery. Extending the symbolism to a whole painting makes it allegorical. The Three Brides below is an example where the three brides represent three states of the soul. The artists used mythological characters and biblical events: dark spirits, angels, gods and goddesses.

Symbolism vs. Surrealism: Despite the common characteristic of placing objects in bizarre juxtapositions in both art styles, there is one main difference: in a Symbolist artwork, everything is meaningful. Also there is always a single, coherent idea that ties up all the strange symbols in one painting. As for Surrealist art, symbols are often irrational and nonsensical. Sometimes they’re used in a playful and humorous way which is foreign to Symbolist art.

The Death of the Grave Digger by Carlos Schwabe

In this painting the black dress and wings of the Angel of Death contrast with the white background of the snow-covered graveyard. She had just caught an old gravedigger by surprise, as evident from his tense hand grasping at his own heart. The green light she holds most likely represents his soul. Surrounding the grave where the old man had been standing and which will be his ultimate resting place, there’s growing grass. It symbolizes the start of a new life while another is ending.

The Three Brides by Jan Toorop
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Pornocrates La dame au cochon – The Lady with the Pig by Félicien Rops
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Hesiod and the Muse by Gustave Moreau
Hesiod, a Greek poet, is shown here with a lyre in the presence of the Muse of song and poetry.

I lock my door upon myself by Fernand Khnopff
Note the Pre-Raphaelite influence on this painting: the woman of ideal beauty with long, flowing red hair, her wistful gaze and the title of the painting which is based on a line from a poem.

Jupiter and Semele by Gustave Moreau
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The Dance of Life by Edvard Munch
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The Cyclops by Odilon Redon
Note the influence of Impressionism on the color composition of this painting.

Feature 3:
Look for the recurring dark theme of death and mortality (hint: skulls and skeletons)

The Garden of Death by Hugo Simberg

According to to the artist, this is a waiting place before arriving at heaven. The strange flowers are symbols of the souls of the dead. It might have been inspired by the traditional idea of the purgatory. Perhaps the the road at the top of the painting is what leads towards heaven. What’s innovative about this painting is that the skeletons in black robes, who are reminiscent of the frightening Grim Reaper, are depicted as lovable and gentle figures tending to flowers: One is shown with a watering can and the other is holding up to his chest a bunch of flowers. A possible interpretation of this gloomy yet peaceful painting is to tell the viewers that there is no reason to fear death.

Death and Life by Gustav Klimt

In this allegorical painting, Death is personified in the traditional Grim Reaper looking down on Life represented by all ages, incluing a mother, grandmother and a baby. They’re all huddled together making a “monolith of life.” The Grim Reaper is holding a club (not a scythe) eagerly watching like a predator. People seem unaware of his presence, and his closeness. He is wearing a robe covered with crosses to symbolize death. In contrast, the women, on the other side, are sleeping on a flower bed, as a symbol of beauty and youth.

Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle by Arnold Böcklin
The skeleton in the background playing a violin is a centuries-old symbol of inevitable death.

Death and the Masks by James Ensor
None of the faces in this painting is real: The masks in the painting stand for the decadence and materialism of the bourgeosie while in the middle there’s a skull, representing death, showing a creepy grin, as if bemused by their acting that the party will never come to an end.

Feature 4:
Femme fatale: Look for the theme of sin and sensuality, famously portrayed in the popular motif of the femme fatale (‘dangerous woman’). Traditional social view of women had always influenced art which would often fit them in one of two main archetypes: virgin or whore. The femme fatale reappeared in Symbolist art, and it was nothing short of obscene. From the perspective of artists (or many men of that era), women were dangerous and deceptive, sexually deviant and insatiable. They could even turn ruthlessly violent. Artists used that theme as a cautionary tale against submitting to their allure. They didn’t need to make up new subject matter because they were able to reuse familiar scenes from ancient mythology (e.g. Medusa) or the Bible (Eve or Salome).

Symbolism vs. Pre-Raphaelite art: Contrast the ideal, virginal beauty of Pre-Rapaelite women with their evil, monstrous counterparts below.

The Sin by Franz Stuck
Note Eve’s gaze towards you and the serpent around her torso which is usually a symbol of her seduction.

Idol of Perversity -L’Idole de la perversité by Jean Delville
Note the snake slithering between her breasts and the supernatural energy radiating from her head.

Eve by Lucien Levy-Dhurmer

The Egg by Alfred Kubin
Don’t miss the open grave next to the skeletal woman with an enormously swollen belly (pregnant?).

The Apparition by Gustave Moreau
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Judith and the Head of Holofernes by Gustav Klimt
Note the severed head (view Feature 5 below).

Feature 5:
A hallucinatory world of creepy, disembodied/severed heads, and hybrid human-animal and human-monster creatures

The Sphinx or The Caresses by Fernand Khnopff

Oedipus and the Sphinx by Gustave Moreau
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Guardian Spirit of the Waters by Odilon Redon

Eye Balloon by Odilon Redon
Note the skull on a saucer being dragged up by the eye balloon.

The Crying Spider by Odilon Redon, a hybrid human-monster

Cactus Man by Odilon Redon, a hybrid human-plant

How Symbolist art got its name?

In 1886, art critic, Jean Moréas, coined the term Symbolism to describe the rising trend in literature and art of representing ideas through highly metaphorical imagery.

What gave rise to Symbolist art? and where?

Symbolism had always been a feature of art in the West, especially since culture became Christianized in the middle of the first millenium. The dove, the lamb, candles, sacred heart and the cross were among many religious symbols found on church walls, ceilings, and later in paintings. During the 17th and 18th centuries, religion receded from the public sphere, pushed aside by Enlightenment ideals, hence religious art and its symbolism lost their appeal. Most art styles that followed were based on reality and mundane activities. Two such “reality-based” art styles in particular would prove highly popular: Realism (1840-1870) and Impressionism (1870-1900). A backlash ensued and earned the name ‘Symbolism.’

In literature, realism and its closely associated ‘naturalism’ were dominant mid-19th-century movements in France and beyond. Writers like Honoré de Balzac, Émile Zola and Gustave Flaubert explored dark, realistic themes that included prostitution, poverty and disease. (Flaubert’s masterpiece Madame Bovary described an adulterous affair making it a scandalous novel for its time. One scene, as an example, shows the cuckold husband who’s a doctor, following a wrong treatment, having to amputate the patient’s gangrenous leg.) Grubby, industrial cities were emerging around Europe and it just made sense for writers and painters to focus on issues of modern society like poverty and alienation.

When the Symbolist counter-movement appeared on the literary scene in the 1880s, they rejected this rational and ‘natural’ approach. Later, a generation of painters joined them. French-speaking, Greek poet Jean Moréas declared the arrival of Symbolism in a manifesto to the widest audience possible in the French national paper, Le Figaro, in 1886.

Although Symbolists were not an organized group, they shared some characteristics, one of which is pessimism – an obvious trait in their paintings. Note their morbid fascination with themes like death and decadence. When you cease to discuss the ‘real problems,’ you’re making an assumption that perhaps there is no point. Instead of depicting the tangible world, their works often showed a fantastical, supernatural world. Their inspiration came from an earlier movement called Romanticism. To them, reality was not to be examined and depicted, it was best avoided. At its core, Symbolism was an escapist art. What else gave them refuge from reality? Heavy consumption of booze and hashish and a few of them became known for destructive relationships. Their affinity for suffering harkens back to the period of the Romantics, who passed on to them – you probably have recognized – the familiar figure of the starving or tortured artist – an idea that has prevailed to this day.

A quick survey of iconic poem titles from that period indicate the new ‘symbolist’ direction: The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal) by Charles Baudelaire; The Drunken Boat (Le Bateau Ivre) by Arthur Rimbaud. (Rimbaud himself had an opium and absinthe-loaded lifestyle and a turbulent gay relationship with another French Symbolist poet, Paul Verlaine.) A quote from a letter by Rimbaud written in 1871 reaffirms the above: “A Poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness.” Indeed, many of the Symbolist visions materializing in painting or writing were induced by drugs through which they sought to unleash their creativity.

More than a few became bohemians or associated with them like Gustav Klimt, Edvard Munch and James Ensor. A bohemian gathering in the 19th century was not unlike a hippie commune in the 1960s. It was made up of those who refused to conform to the social norms. They wore shabby and eccentric clothes, shared drugs and alcohol, had fleeting or ‘unconventional’ relationships, voluntarily chose a life of poverty and some even became nomadic travelers.

The haunting works of Symbolism reflect the isolation and disillusionment felt by many in Europe during the fin-de-siècle period, that is the last two decades of the 19th century. Like the Romantics, they did not share the prevalent sentiment of confidence in progress and science. What they emphasized in their work is the inner subjectivity of the artist who talks like a prophet in the language of esoteric ideas and dreamlike visions. The artworks betray their dark view that despite all progress of the era, natural forces are still beyond human control: love, lust, fear and death. Such mood of despair and loneliness fueled the drive to create some of the most grotesque art to encounter. Additionally they brought back themes of ancients myths and biblical tales in addition to the graphic representation of their fantasies, nightmares and anxieties. Sadly, one symbol of these anxieties was Woman; the ‘castrating’ sexually insatiable femme fatale whose sole pleasure is sucking life out of her male victims.

Rebels of a new generation

Symbolists did not merely reject an art style, they rejected mainstream society, from its materialism to its “bourgeois morality.” They saw Realism (1830-1870) in art as inferior to subject matter expressing their personal emotions and mystical metaphors. Impressionism (1870 – 1900) was no different. In retrospect, we view it as a first major step in breaking up with realistic art heading towards modern abstraction (non-figurative representation) where we’ll eventually end up with paintings with simple geometric shapes or plain colours. In the eyes of the Symbolists, it was another art style based on the real world. They particularly disdained its “superficial” play with light and colour. They brought back elements from Romanticism, although in a much gloomier style. The Sybmolist prophet who dug into his own psyche for spiritual visions to graphically translate them into symbols and allegories was, you could say, foretelling the world that the Surrealists are coming. They were their precursors.