Symbolism

<p>Symbolism took shape in France in the 1880s as a reaction against both realism and Impressionism, which Symbolist painters saw as too concerned with recording the surface appearance of the world. They turned instead toward dreams, myth, religion, and inner psychological states, using suggestive imagery and rich, sometimes strange color to point toward ideas that could not be shown directly. The movement spread quickly beyond France into Belgium, Austria, and Russia, each region developing its own version of the same basic impulse.</p> <p><a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/gustav-klimt"><strong>Gustav Klimt</strong></a> led the Vienna Secession and became the movement's most recognized painter, covering figures in gold leaf and ornamental pattern in <a href="/apps/masterpieces/art/the-kiss-klimt"><strong>The Kiss</strong></a> and <a href="/apps/masterpieces/art/tree-of-life-klimt"><strong>The Tree of Life</strong></a>, while <a href="/apps/masterpieces/art/death-and-life"><strong>Death and Life</strong></a> shows his darker, more allegorical side. <a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/gustave-moreau"><strong>Gustave Moreau</strong></a> painted mythological subjects with jewel-like detail, treating figures like Salome as vessels for obsession and dread rather than historical illustration. <a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/james-ensor"><strong>James Ensor</strong></a> in Belgium turned to masks and skeletons to expose the grotesque beneath polite society, while Russian painter <a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/mikhail-vrubel"><strong>Mikhail Vrubel</strong></a> returned again and again to demonic subjects drawn from Lermontov's poetry. <a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/pierre-puvis-de-chavannes"><strong>Pierre Puvis de Chavannes</strong></a> offered a calmer, more classical version of Symbolist ideals, painting flattened, dreamlike murals that influenced a generation of younger artists including Picasso.</p>