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Looking Back on Symbolism
| Article
# : |
13816 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1988 |
3,847 Words |
| Author
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Michael Gibson
Michael Gibson, author of a number of books on art, is the
Paris art critic for the International Herald Tribune and a
frequent contributor to publications in Europe and the United
States. |
Symbolism should be regarded less as an art movement and more as a somewhat nebulous state of mind that enveloped the arts and letters throughout much of Europe between the 1880s and the beginning of World War I. (Such limits in time are never quite precise, of course.) It included painters and sculptors but also poets and writers—even Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most influential philosophers of the day, occasionally chose to write in a singularly symbolistic tone. Symbolism had its forerunners, to be sure: Gustave Moreau was exhibiting paintings evidencing this mood as early as 1867. We might look even further back to such figures as William Blake, Henry Fuseli, Francisco Goya, or the American painter Thomas Cole. All these artists seem to foreshadow something of the Symbolist spirit. The Symbolists can be regarded as heirs of the Romantic movement, which was characterized by an interest in dreams (also to be found in Symbolism), and by a mystic belief in nature (generally replaced by an emphasis on artificiality).
One thing is certain: This nebulous spirit was a product of the industrial world. Most Symbolist art was largely created in Europe, in the cities of Glasgow, Stockholm, Gdansk, Lodz, Trieste, Florence, Barcelona, Paris, and London.
Over a century has passed since this movement made its appearance, first in France, then in other European countries. For nearly forty years, it was representative of the dominant mood in European art. Art historians in our own century, however, perplexed by its diversity and at times repelled by its content, have sidestepped the theoretical questions raised by this phenomenon. We must try to understand the faintly absurd aspect of Symbolist art. But to shed some light on this decadent, affected, and sometimes poignant world, we will have to forgo both self-indulgent sentiment and overly stern principles.
Symbolist art can offer some dazzling insights. Neither Ensor nor Munch nor Kubin nor Redon strikes us as laughable in any way, not because of what we know of their lives, but because of what their lives brought to their art: an inner tension rather than a pose, deeply experienced anguish rather than formal principles. It is these qualities that make their work the first fruit of modernity.
What characterizes the Symbolist period? What force generated that dense throng of artists we refer to as the Symbolists? And what caused it to appear quite suddenly on the stage of art around 1880 and remain there until at least
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