Symbolism

Symbolism originated in France, and was part of a 19th-century movement in which art became infused with mysticism. It was a continuation of the Romantic tradition.

French Symbolism was both a continuation of the Romantic tradition and a reaction to the realistic approach of impressionism. It served as a catalyst in the outgrowth of the darker sides of Romanticism and toward abstraction.

The term Symbolism means the systematic use of symbols or pictorial conventions to express an allegorical meaning. Symbolism is an important element of most religious arts and reading symbols plays a main role in psychoanalysis. Thus, the Symbolist painters used these symbols from mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul.

There were several, rather dissimilar, groups of Symbolist painters and visual artists. Symbolism in painting had a large geographical reach, reaching several Russian artists, as well as American. The closest to Symbolism was Aestheticism. The Pre-Raphaelites, also, were contemporaries of the earlier Symbolists, and have much in common with them. Symbolism had a significant influence on Expressionism and Surrealism, two movements which descend directly from Symbolism proper. The work of some Symbolist visual artists directly impacted the curvilinear forms of the contemporary Art Nouveau movements in Europe and Les Nabis.

which included such artists as John Henry Fuseli and Caspar David Friedrich.

Anticipating Freud and Jung, the Symbolists mined mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul. More a philosophical approach than an actual style of art, they influenced their contemporaries in the Art Nouveau movement and Les Nabis.

The leading Symbolists included Gustave Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes, and Odilon Redon.

The movement was also a major influence on some of the Expressionists, especially on the work of Franz von Stuck and Edvard Munch.



In my point of view, it has not giving a meaning directly it is abstract art.

It contains inside world like potential meaning not the viewing only which provided particular images or objects with esoteric attractions.

Symbolist believed that art should apprehend more absolute truths which could only be accessed indirectly. Thus, they painted scenes from nature, human activities, and all other real world phenomena in a highly metaphorical and suggestive manner.

Not so much a style of art, Symbolism was more an international ideological trend.