- What is symbolism?
- Historical context of symbolism
- Characteristics of symbolism
- Main Authors of Symbolism
- Symbolism and Parnassianism
We explain what symbolism in art is, its historical context and other characteristics. In addition, its main representatives.
What is symbolism?
In history of art, Symbolism was an artistic and literary movement of the European nineteenth century, emerged in France and Belgium. It is considered one of the most important of its time.
It is a movement that responds to realism prevailing in the Europe from that time. He proposed a flight towards the dreamlike, to rescue delirium and experimentation with psychotropics, in an artistic position reminiscent of the romanticism of the English poet William Blake (1757-1827).
In his literary manifesto of 1886, the Greek poet Jean Moréas (1856-1910) defined symbolism as “… enemy of the teaching, declamation, false sensibility and description objective ”. In other words, they aspired to find the hidden correspondences between the objects of the sensible world. They were looking for an alien, mysterious, dark reality.
Inside of history of the movement, its starting point was the publication of The flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867). The dark aesthetics of this French poet, together with that of the sinister tales of the American Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), were decisive in founding the symbolist aesthetic.
However, it was not until 1870 that the French Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) and Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) defined and developed the Symbolist aesthetic. Ten years later there was a whole generation strongly adhering to the movement, not only in Belgium and France but in many others. nations.
For its part, pictorial symbolism arose as a response to naturalism and impressionism. Initially he bet on a certain degree of abstraction in his paintings, and later on the "recovery" of the sense of art, which was assumed lost amid so much rationality.
As in the Romanticism, the painting symbolist bet on color, and in his imagination it is common to find religious or mystical concepts, if not scenes from popular and traditional stories.
Historical context of symbolism
Before the emergence of symbolism, realism and naturalism understood art as a way of imitating the reality political and social of nations. In addition, they exalted the representation of everyday reality. Thus, symbolism arose in opposition to these movements, and is included among other post-romantic movements.
In that sense, the symbolism is close to Parnassianism, but it arose as a division between its ranks from the arrival of the "cursed poets": Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Tristan Corbière, Isidore Ducasse, among others, a mid-19th century.
The Symbolists oppose the philosophical and artistic tradition founded by the Illustration French. Nor do they accept the scientific, cosmopolitan and rationalist that the latter proposed, as well as against the pragmatic and materialistic values of the nascent industrial society.
Characteristics of symbolism
Symbolist painting prioritized color and showed a certain abstraction.The Symbolist movement was characterized by:
- His aesthetics are interested in the dreamlike, the spiritual and the fantastic, exalting subjectivity over objectivity.
- They shamelessly portrayed diabolical, sexual and drug use situations.
- In the pictorial, he opted for color and a certain margin of abstraction, to create his own set of pictorial forms.
- In the literary sphere, he opposed the rationality of realism and also the perfection of verse Parnassianist.
- Each artist went his own way, because although the symbolism had general tendencies, it was not strict in its procedures or methods.
- It was a forerunner of modernism and decadentism.
Main Authors of Symbolism
The main Symbolist writers were:
- Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867). The cursed poet par excellence, the French Charles Baudelaire and his collection of poems The flowers of Evil they marked an important change in the sensibilities of the time, giving rise to the emergence of symbolism and becoming one of the great European poets of all time. His odes to prostitutes, syphilis and liquor are famous, as well as his bohemian and licentious life, and he is considered the first author to condense the experience of the metropolitan city of the time in the word "modernity".
- Isidore Ducasse (1846-1870). Known as the Count of Lautréamont, he was a Franco-Uruguayan poet considered not only symbolist and decadentist, but also a precursor of the surrealism. He lived a short life and lacked his deserved recognition as a poet, and his main and most famous work are The songs of Maldoror .
- Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898). One of the poets who best represented Symbolist aesthetics, and who at the same time led to its overcoming. He was the predecessor of the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, he is the author of a short and ambitious work that inspired later poets such as Rainer María Rilke and Paul Valéry. He is credited with incorporating free verse and poetry around a central symbol, typical of the movement and its successors.
- Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). One of the most precocious French poets in history, he developed his entire work before he was 19 years old, at which age he abandoned letters and would dedicate himself to traveling around Africa and Europe. In some of these trips he would find death at 37 years of age, there are those who claim that he was involved in the slave trade. Verlaine's lover, his work was not recognized in life, but it influenced the literature to come in a fundamental way, especially his poetry books A season in hell Y The illuminations .
- Paul Verlaine (1844-1896). A central French poet in the Symbolist movement, he lived a fleeting life marked by both poetry and his love affair with Rimbaud, whom he wounded with a pistol on his wrist in 1873, being sentenced to two years in prison. His fame in the literary world coincided, in life, with the deepest of socioeconomic miseries, and he died prematurely at the age of 51. Chosen in 1894 as "Prince of poets", his work includes prose and poetry, and stands out in it Yesteryear and home from 1884.
- Paul Valery (1871-1945), French writer, poet, essayist and philosopher, was not only a Symbolist, but his work embodies the so-called “pure poetry” of the interwar period of the 20th century. From an extensive critical and poetic work, in which Monsieur Teste and The marine cemetery , is a fundamental poet, widely commented on by Theodor Adorno, Octavio Paz and Jacques Derrida.
For their part, the main Symbolist painters were:
- Gustave Moreau (1826-1898). French painter considered a true precursor of symbolism, he is known for his decadent aesthetics, strongly influenced by Italian Renaissance art and by romanticism itself. His works pursue the Greco-Roman imaginary, and among them stand out Oedipus and the sphinx Y Jupiter and Semele .
- Odilon Redon (1840-1916). Also French, he is considered a forerunner of surrealist painting. His work encompassed painting, sculpture, engravings and lithographs. It was quite unknown until a novel A cult book written by Joris-Karl Huysmans and published in 1884, it mentioned his work and made it popular. An admirer of Poe, Darwin and his friend Baudelaire, whose books he often illustrated, he cultivated a work mostly in black and white, unlike the other Symbolists.
- Jean-Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940). French painter and illustrator who was part of the group of young artists called the “Nabis”. Influenced by Gauguin, he painted mostly interior spaces, as can be seen in Interior or in The elegant lady at the Moulin Rouge .
Symbolism and Parnassianism
Symbolism is a division of Parnassianism that refused to follow its precious aesthetic, opting rather for a more hermetic and dark one.
However, the poetry of both movements presents common elements, such as the use of word games, the musicality of the verses and the commitment with "art for art's sake", that is, for the idea that art should not be a means of expression of anything other than itself.
The final separation between the two styles occurred when Rimbaud and other poets decided to publish a series of verses making fun of the Parnassian style and its main authors.