Symbolism (arts)

La mort du fossoyeur ("The death of the gravedigger") by is a visual compendium of Symbolist motifs. and , pristine , and the dramatic poses of the characters all express Symbolist longings for transfiguration "anywhere, out of the world."
Symbolism was a late of and origin in and other arts.
Contents

Precursors and origins
French Symbolism was in large part a reaction against and , movements which attempted to capture reality in its particularity. These movements invited a reaction in favour of , the , and ; the path to Symbolism begins with that reaction. Some writers, such as , began as naturalists before moving in the direction of Symbolism; for Huysmans, this change reflected his awakening interest in religion and spirituality.
The Symbolist movement in literature has its roots in (The Flowers of Evil) by . The esthetic was developed by and during the 1860s and 70s. During the 1880s, the esthetic was articulated through a series of manifestoes and attracted a generation of writers. The works of , which Baudelaire greatly admired and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock and images.
Distinct from the Symbolist movement in literature, Symbolism in art represents an outgrowth of the more and darker sides of ; but where Romanticism was impetuous and rebellious, Symbolist art was static and hieratic.
Movement
The Symbolist Manifesto
Symbolists believed that art should aim to capture more absolute truths which could only be accessed by indirect methods. Thus, they wrote in a highly metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. The (‘Le Symbolisme’, Le Figaro, 18 Sept 1886) was published in by . Morйas announced that Symbolism was hostile to "plain meanings, declamations, false sentimentality and matter-of-fact description," and that its goal instead was to "clothe the Ideal in a perceptible form" whose "goal was not in itself, but whose sole purpose was to express the Ideal":
In this art, scenes from nature, human activities, and all other real world phenomena will not be described for their own sake; here, they are perceptible surfaces created to represent their esoteric affinities with the primordial Ideals.
Techniques
The Symbolist poets wished to liberate techniques of versification in order to allow greater room for "fluidity", and as such were aligned with the movement towards , a direction very much in evidence in the poems of . Symbolist poems sought to evoke, rather than to describe; symbolic imagery was used to signify the state of the poet's . was a prized experience; poets sought to identify and confound the separate senses of scent, sound, and colour. In Baudelaire's poem Correspondences which also speaks tellingly of forкts de symboles — forests of symbols —
Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
— Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,

Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,
Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,
Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.
(There are perfumes that are fresh like babies' skins,
sweet like oboes, green like meadows
— And others, corrupt, rich, and triumphant,

having the expansiveness of infinite things,
like amber, musc, benjamin, and incense,
which sing of the raptures of the mind and senses.)
and 's poem Voyelles:
A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleuvoyelles. . .
(A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels. . .) —
both poets seek to identify one sense experience with another, although it seems that neither of them actually experienced synesthesia (see ).
Paul Verlaine and the poиtes maudits
But perhaps of the several attempts at defining the essence of Symbolism, none was more influential than 's publication of a series of essays on , , and , each of whom Verl aine numbered among the poиtes maudits, "accursed poets."
Verlaine argued that in their individual and very different ways, each of these hitherto neglected poets found a curse; it isolated them from their contemporaries, and as a result these poets were not at all concerned to avoid and idiosyncratic writing styles. In this conception of genius and the role of the poet, Verlaine referred obliquely to the of , the philosopher of , who held that the purpose of art was to provide a temporary refuge from the world of blind strife of the .
Philosophy
reflected shared concerns with the Symbolist programme; they both tended to look to Art as a contemplative refuge from the world of strife and . From this desire for an artistic refuge from the world, the Symbolists took characteristic themes of and otherworldliness, a keen sense of , and a sense of the malign power of . Mallarmй's poem Les fenкtres () expresses all of these themes clearly. A dying man in a hospital bed, seeking escape from the pain and dreariness of his physical surroundings, turns toward his window; turns away in disgust from:
. . . . l'homme а l'вme dure
Vautrй dans le bonheur, oщ ses seuls app&# xE9;tits
Mangent, et qui s'entкte а chercher cette ordure
Pour l'offrir а la femme allaitant ses petits,
("the hard-souled man, wallowing in happiness, where only his appetites feed, and who insists on seeking out this filth to o ffer to the wife suckling his children")
and in contrast, he "turns his back on life" (tourne l’йpaule а la vie) and he exclaims:
Je me mire et me vois ange! Et je meurs, et j'aime
— Que la vitre soit l'art, soit la mysticitй —
A renaоtre, portant mon rкve en diadиme,
Au ciel antйrieur oщ fleurit la Beautй!
("I marvel at myself, I seem an angel! and I die, and I love --- whether the glass might be art, or mysticism --- to be reborn, bearing my dream as a diadem, under that former sky where Beauty once flourished.")
The Symbolist movement has frequently been confused with . Several young writers were derisively referred to in the press as "decadent" in the mid 1880s. Jean Morйas' manifesto was largely a response to this polemic. A few of these writers embraced the term while most avoided it. Although the esthetics of Symbolism and Decadence can be seen as overlapping in som e areas, the two remain distinct.
Literary world
A number of important literary publications were founded by Symbolists or became associated with the movement; the first was founded in April 1886. In October of that same year, , , and began . One of the most important Symbolist journals was , edited by , which succeeded La Plйiade; founded in , this periodical lasted until . founded , a periodical whose Symbolist leanings were alluded to by in his story . Other Symbolist literary magazines included , , and .
and were associated with the Symbolist movement. Drama by Symbolist authors formed an important part of the repertoire of the and the .
The Symbolist and Decadent literary movements were in a book of poetry called , published in by and .
In other media
In the visual arts
's The Caress
Symbolism in literature is distinct from Symbolism in art although the two overlapped on a number of points. In painting, Symbolism was a continuation of some mystical tendencies in the , which included such artists as , and and it was even more closely aligned with the self-consciously dark and private movement of .
There were several, rather dissimilar, groups of and visual artists, among whom , , , , , , and were numbered. Symbolism in painting had an even larger geographical reach than Symbolism in poetry, reaching several artists, as well as figures such as in the . is sometimes considered a Symbolist in sculpture.
The Symbolist painters mined mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul, seeking evocative paintings that brought to mind a static world of silence. The symbols used in Symbolism are not the familiar of mainstream but intensely personal, private, obscure and ambiguous references. More a philosophy than an actual style of art, the Symbolist painters influenced the contemporary movement and . In their exploration of dreamlike subjects they are also precursors of the ; Bernard Delvaille has described 's surrealism as "Symbolism plus ".
Music
Symbolism had some influence in as well. Many Symbolist writers and critics were early enthusiasts for the music of , a fellow student of Schopenhauer.
The Symbolist aesthetic had a deep impact on the works of . His choices of , texts, and themes come almost exclusively from the Symbolist canon: in particular, compositions such as his settings of Cinq poиmes de Baudelaire, various on poems by Verlaine, the with a libretto by , and his unfinished sketches that illustrate two Poe stories, and , all indicate that Debussy was profoundly influenced by Symbolist themes and tastes. His best known work, the , was inspired by a poem by Mallarmй, .
's compositions are also influenced by the Symbolist aesthetic. 's takes its text from translations of the Symbolist poems by , showing a link between German expressionism and Symbolism.
[]
Prose fiction
Je veux boire des poisons, me perdre
dans les vapeurs, dans les rкves!
"I want to drink poisons, to lose myself
in mists, in dreams!"

Diana, in
by .
Symbolism's cult of the static and hieratic adapted less well to narrative fiction than it did to poetry. ' 1884 (English title: ) contained many themes which became associated with the Symbolist esthetic. This novel in which very little happens is a catalogue of the tastes and inner life of Des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive . The novel was imitated by in several passages of .
was the most prolific and most representative author of Symbolist novels. Les Demoiselles Goubert co-written with in 1886 is an important transitional work between Naturalism and Symbolism. Few Symbolists used this form. One exception is who published Le Roi fou in 1896. Other fiction that is sometimes considered Symbolist is the cynical misanthropic (and especially, misogynistic) tales of . wrote his first novels in the Symbolist vein.
Theatre
The same emphasis on an internal life of dreams and fantasies have made Symbolist theatre difficult to reconcile with more recent tastes and trends. 's drama (rev. ed. ) is a definitive Symbolist play; in it, two aristocrats fall in love while trying to kill each other, only to agree to mutually commit suicide because nothing in life could equal their fantasies. From this play, took the title Axel's Castle for his influential study of the Symbolist aftermath in literature.
was another Symbolist playwright; his theatrical output includes both Pellйas and Melisande, and ("The Blue Bird"), another theatrical fantasy. The later works of the Russian playwright have been identified as being deeply influenced by Symbolist pessimism. Under Symbolist influence, the Russian actor and director developed a theory of acting in contrast to 's , which focused on learning gestures and movements as a way of expressing outward emotion. Meyerhold's m ethod was influential in early , and especially on the works of .
Aftermath
In the speaking world, the closest counterpart to Symbolism was ; the , also, were contemporaries of the earlier Symbolists, and have much in common with them. Symbolism had a significant influence on and its traces can be seen in a number of modernist artists, including , , , , and in the anglophone tradition and in Hispanic letters. The early poems of have strong affinities with Symbolism.
's study Axel's Castle focuses on the continuity with Symbolism and a number of important writers of the early twentieth century, with a particular focus on Yeats, Eliot, , , , and . Wilson concluded that the Symbolists represented a dreaming retreat into:
. . .things that are dying—the whole tradition of Renaissance culture perhaps, compelled to specialize more and more, more and mor e driven in on itself, as industrialism and democratic education have come to press it closer and closer.
Russian symbolist painters included (1856-1910).
As the movement was losing its forward movement in France, after the turn of the it became a major force in . The , steeped in the and the religious doctrines of , had little in common with the French movement of the same name. It was the starting point of the careers of several major poets such as , , and . Bely's novel Petersburg (1912) is considered the greatest monument of Russian symbolist prose.
In , Symbolists directly influenced by French poetry were first influential in the 1880s, when reunited a group of young poets around his magazine . Polemicizing with the established and overshadowed by the influence of , Symbolism was recovered as an inspiration in the 1910s, when it was voiced in the works of , , , , and , and held in esteem by the magazine .
The Symbolist painters were an important influence on and in painting, two movements which descend directly from Symbolism proper. The , paupers, and clowns of 's "" show the influence of Symbolism, and especially of Puvis de Chavannes. In , where Symbolism had penetrated deeply, so much so that it came to be thou ght of as a n ational style, the static strangeness of painters like can be seen as a direct continuation of Symbolism. The work of some Symbolist visual artists directly impacted the curvilinear forms of .
Many early , also, contain a good deal of Symbolist visual imagery and themes in their staging, set designs, and imagery. The films of owe a great deal to Symbolist imagery. The virginal "good girls" seen in the films of , and the "bad girls" portrayed by , both show the continuing influence of Symbolist imagery, as do the scenes from Griffith's . Symbolist imagery lived on longest in the ; as late as , a horror film such as 's shows the obvious influence of Symbolist imagery; parts of the film resemble tableau vivant re-creations of the early paintings of .
Symbolists
Precursors
(1821-67)
(1846-70)
(1808-55)
[]
Authors
(1838-89)
(1842-98)
(1844-96)
(1854-91)
(1855-98)
(1855-1916)
(1856-1910)
(1858-1900)
(1858-1915)
(1859-1936)
(1860-1929)
(1860-87)
(1862-1920)
(1862-1949)
(1863-1915)
(1863-1930)
(1863-1937)
(1864-1936)
(1865-1892)
(1866-1945)
(1871-1945)
(1877-1909)
(1879-1941)
(1880-1934)
[]
Influence in English literature
authors that influenced, or were influenced by Symbolism include:
(1809-49)
(1757-1827)
(1828-82)
(1837-1909)
(1854-1900)
(1865-1945)
(1866-1934)
(1867-1900)
(1860-95)
(1888-1965)
(1865-1939)
(1879-1955)
(1885-1972)
(1887-1964)
(1889-1973)
(1893-1961)
(1899-1932)
See also:
Symbolist painters
- (1757-1827)
- (1817-1904)
- (1827-1901)
- (1824-1898)
(1836 - 1904)
- (1858-1921)
- (1862-1918)
- (1826-1898)
- (1863-1944)
- (1840-1916)
- (1855-1898)
- (1858-1928)
(1856-1910)

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