The Meaning
Definition of Symbolism:
“A person, place, action, word or thing that represents something other than itself.”
From “Art The Definitive Visual Guide”:
“Loose term for a late 19th century artistic and literary movement.
Artists favoured subjective, personal representations of the world, and were influenced by religious mysticism and primitive art.”
The Vision
Symbolism was a response to a belief in 3 profound losses or “humiliations” as Freud eventually put it:
A cosmological humiliation: science had demonstrated that the earth (and therefore man) is no longer the center of the universe
A biological humiliation: evolution theory disrupted the belief that man was created in the image of god
A psychological humiliation: the unconscious contained the ego; therefore, the psychology of the human being was largely an unknown quantity.
http://www.radford.edu/~rbarris/art428/Chapter%202%20Symbolism.html
The Metaphor
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
An Example:
“Life is a roller-coaster”
This is symbolic because it indicates that there will be ups and downs in life that you have to weather.
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples/examples-of-symbolism.html
Symbolist Manifesto
Published by a Greek Poet and Essayist in 1886 named Jean Moreas
It defines symbolism as a style “Goal was not the ideal, but whose soul purpose was to express itself for the sake of being expressed.”
Salon de la rose and Croix
Resurgence of Catholicism in France
A cultic group was the mystic order of the Rose and Croix, founded by Josephin Peladan
The follower to be inspired by religion, mysticism, legend, myth, dream, allegory and poetry
The followers are the following; read by Richard
Hosted six salons from 1892-1897
Moves on to be plays and music.
Fought for the establishment and perputation of freedom
This is now a dangerous cult
The cult did art during the late 1800’s
Fernard Khnopff – Art Sphinx
Alexandre Seon was one of the founders of the Rose & Croix Salon, where he often exhibited to considerable praise from the symbolist critics
The Sphinx or The Caresses
Fernand Khnopff
Oil on Canvas
What does this painting represent?
The animal with the human head is known is a Sphinx.
Women could be presented as voluptuous.
The sphinx devoured all who failed to answer her riddle “What walks on four legs, two legs,
and three legs?”
The sphinx has come to represent knowledge of good and evil, life and death.
Mikhail Nesterov ; Vision of youth Bartholomew
This painting depicts the youth Bartholomew, the future St Sergius of Radonezh, during a miraculous encounter he had with an old monk. Prior to this encounter, Bartholomew had great difficulty learning to read. Following this miraculous event, however, learning came very easy to him. St Sergius is one of the principle saints in Russian Orthodoxy who was a holy ascetic and founder of the Holy Trinity Lavra, one of the great spiritual centers today in Russia.
EDPhotography3L 