The 19th century was an era of great change
for much of the Western world.
Symbolism was in many ways a response
to the rapid industrialisation
and scientific advances that were affecting society.
It began in literature
an expression of disenchantment with modern society
but spread quickly to music and fine arts.
The Symbolists were Avant-gardes,
a diverse group, often working independently
in different styles and mediums.
They sought escape from an increasingly grey reality
by expressing dreams, visions and spirituality.
Symbolist fine artists are identified by
use of colour
and flat, often abstract forms.
Their work was often emotive
with recurring themes:
love, fear, anguish, death,
sexual awakening and desire.
Very different from the type of romantic or academic art
that was favoured by the art establishment
of the day.
Odilon Redon was a forerunner of the Symbolist movement.
His lithographic prints - lyrical and sinister - typify Symbolism
by emphasising dreams and the imagination
Illustrating Gustave Flaubert’s poem
‘La Tentation de Saint-Antoine’
(The Temptation of St. Anthony)
he showcased the move away from naturalism
with his use of dream imagery
and strange, imaginary figures.
Redon was an important influence on many later artists
including his friend: Paul Gauguin
Gauguin’s iconic painting 'Vision of the Sermon'
was described by a critic in 1891
as "the first defining Symbolist painting".
It illustrates a biblical story in which Jacob wrestles with an angel
The flat forms and broad use of red
emphasises the unreal and dream-like image.
They are seeing Jacob and the angel not physically,
but as a vision.
The tree represents the division between the real world
and the interior space of the mind.
Symbolism and its artistic rejection of the everyday
spread far beyond France.
The Scottish artist Frances Macdonald McNair
produced experimental designs across a range of media.
In 'Sleep', her gaunt stylised figures
inhabit an unreal space
the place of dreams.
McNair’s work exhibits some of the decorative traits of Art Nouveau
a movement that, like Symbolism
emerged at the end of the nineteenth century.
Symbolism influenced artists like
Picasso, Dali, Mondrian and Kandinsky.
It also paved the way for a wide range of artistic movements
such as Expressionism, Surrealism, Abstraction
and more.
The Symbolist influence can still be seen today.
Michael Armitage is an artist currently living and working
between London and Nairobi.
His paintings too are stories
woven between different spaces
historical and contemporary news
internet gossip and memory.
Armitage is by no means a symbolist,
but in his 2016 painting 'Nasema Nawe'
he makes direct reference to Gauguin’s Vision of the Sermon.
In place of the Bretons and angels
his composition shows spectators to
women performing the Baikoko dance,
a popular dance in Africa;
but their stance, and the energy of the work
the flat colors and synthetic, dream-like quality
is the same.
Perhaps the lasting influence of symbolism should be no surprise.
Symbolism was a rejection of scientific and industrial advances
and their impact on society.
As we move in to a new technological age,
what will the art world’s next response be?