5 REPRESENTATIVES of SYMBOLISM in art

The Symbolism took his first steps in literature, extending to the plastic arts, such as painting. A movement that is presented as a rejection of materialism and positivism, in addition to denying the bourgeoisie that they considered decadent. They also opposed the guidelines of Impressionism such as painting in the open air, capturing the changes of light on objects, the use of color or the observation of nature. An objective that led the Symbolists to seek their inspiration in literature.

In this lesson from unPROFESOR.com we offer you a selection of the best representatives of Symbolism in art so that you recognize their most relevant figures and their most outstanding characteristics.

Index

1. What is symbolism in art? Important features
2. Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), one of the representatives of symbolism in art
3. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824 - 1898)
4. Odilon Redon (1840-1916)
5. Georges Rouault (1871–1958)
6. The Pont-Aven School and the Nabis

• Symbolism is a literary and artistic movement that tried to suggest a series of ideas through symbols and through lines, shapes and colors.
• In his works he cuts with the traditional and the classic, becoming a avant-garde style, since The symbolists developed new means to express everything that is behind the physical: all that spiritual and psychological part that artists tried to shape in their works.
• For this, the symbolist artists put emphasis on emotions, ideas, feelings and subjectivity. The works are thus very personal and express their ideas and beliefs.
• Thus, the themes are usually the religious mysticism, eroticism, the perversity, the occult, the evil, the death, the mythology, the supernatural, the spiritual and the dreamlike.
• Symbolism also does not seek inspiration from conventional iconography, resorting to music and literature as a source.

France became the cradle of Symbolism Gustave Moreau being one of the main representatives of him.

This painter is considered to be the father of pictorial symbolism for being a predecessor of the movement. Mythological themes are represented in his works. Historical and biblical, always recreating sumptuous environments full of details. Formed in Romanticism, Moreau stood out for his chromaticism with an enameled finish and influence of Byzantine, Indian and Greco-Roman mosaic art. A style that is also inspired by the oriental, especially in Japanese prints, being also clear the influence of a painter like Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, known as the academic and romantic painter of the sensuality.

Moreau was also a painter who liked the experimentation. For this he resorted to introducing scratching, incisions, rubbing and a great variety of techniques in order to achieve more expressiveness in his works.

His works are suggestive, fantastic and with an ornamental and variegated style. His works include Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864), Orpheus (1865), Jason and Medea (1865), Salomé (1876) and Cleopatra (1887), among others. Moreau was the teacher of Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet and Georges Rouault, among others.

Among the main representatives of symbolism in art is also Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, an original artist for his classicism and serenity.

He stood out for being a muralist and always using cold tones in his works, wishing to offer his paintings the appearance of frescoes. His style is harmonious, with a preference for allegorical themes and away from naturalism. His taste for rhythmic lines, simple shapes and subjective color are key to his style. He was a student of Delacroix, Coutoure and Chassériau.

He was a renowned muralist, standing out for his monumental style and the majestic air of his works. He was the founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts with Rodin, Carrière and Meissonnier, sponsoring new artists and trends.

Between his most outstanding works They include The Poor Fisherman (1881), The Dream (1883), The Sacred Forest (1887), Young People by the Sea (1887), The Inspiring Muses Acclaiming the Genius Messenger of Light (1884-1887).

Odilon redon, a student of Stanislas Gorin and Henri Fantin-Latour and influenced by the work Edgar Allan Poe and the Baudelaire, as well as by mythology, history and science, especially by the scientific materialism.

Redon was noted for his dreamlike, imaginative and fantastic style in which reality and fiction, the conscious and the unconscious are combined. An experimental artist who introduced strange, suggestive, provocative elements into his works, generating much controversy around his work. He worked charcoal drawing and lithography, being also an excellent colorist. Thus, until 1890 he worked exclusively in black and white, progressively turning to color and glossy paintings. After the symbolist phase he turned to painting colorful floral compositions.

Between his plays The smiling spider (1881), Closed Eyes (1890), Apollo's chariot (1908), The shell (1912), The Cyclops (1914) stand out.

Rouault had a career that started with symbolism to go to fauvismY the expressionism. His style was characterized by brightness, its chromaticism and his taste for night scenes. He is also distinguished by his liking for including marginal and grotesque characters, showing great emotion. Thus, Rouault shows the most cruel, vicious and hypocritical part of the society in which he lives, reaching for ugliness and provocation with topics such as prostitution.

His origins are poor and he began in art as a stained glass apprentice, an experience that can be seen in the chromatic contrasts, the intensity of the color and the black contour of the figures. His taste for jewelry and medieval culture is also seen in many of his works. Some of his great influences were Van Gogh, Gustave Moreau and the literary works of Huysman and Leon Bloy.

His works include Camino del Calvario (1891), La Santa Faz (1933), El rey viejo (1937), the cycle "Miserere", exhibited in 1948.

Other representatives of symbolism in art were the artists who were members of the Pont Aven School, leadered by Paul gauguin. Among them were Émile Bernard, Charles Filiger, Louis Anquetin, Armand Seguin, Charles Laval, Émile Schuffenecker, Meijer de Haan, Henry Moret, and Cuno Amiet.

Also influenced by this Breton school, in 1890 the group called Nabis. A group that was inspired by Gauguin's intense chromaticism and his rhythmic and expressive compositional style. Its members include Édouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Félix Vallotton and Paul Ranson, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Georges Lacombe, Mogens Ballin and Jan Verkade.

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• Neret, G., Gibson, M, (2006), The Symbolism, Taschen
• Cámara Fernández, C, (2011), Gaugin: The symbolism of the exotic, Libsa