How Symbolism got its name and what gave rise to it?

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.

Gustav Klimt, gone bohemian

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.