Symbolism
Sign in to savelate nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images
AI overview
Symbolism was an art movement that began in France, Russia, and Belgium in the late 1800s, using symbolic images and metaphorical language instead of literal depiction to express deeper truths. It mattered because artists rejected realistic representation in favor of exploring the invisible world of ideas, emotions, and spiritual meaning through art.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realism.
In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal. The works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s. In the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The term "symbolist" was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, who invented the term to distinguish the Symbolists from the related Decadents of literature and art.