Art in Detail: Symbolism, The most notable Paintings

Art in Detail
Symbolism
The most notable Paintings

ENSOR, James
Death and the Masks
1897
Oil on canvas, 79 x 100 cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Liège, Liège

ENSOR, James
Death and the Masks (detail)
1897
Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Liège, Liège

REDON, Odilon
Cyclops
1914
Oil on cardboard mounted on panel, 65.8 × 52.7
cm
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

REDON, Odilon
Cyclops (detail)
1914
Oil on cardboard mounted on panel, 65.8 × 52.7 cm
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

VRUBEL, Mikhail Aleksandrovich
Demon (sitting)
1890
oil on canvas, 116,5 х 213,8
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Demon (sitting) (detail)
1890
oil on canvas, 116,5 х 213,8
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

MUNCH, Edvard
The Dance of Life
1899-1900
National Gallery, Oslo

MUNCH, Edvard
The Dance of Life (detail)
1899-1900
National Gallery, Oslo

KLIMT, Gustav
Death and Life
1910-1915
Oil on canvas, 1,805 x 2,005 mm
Leopold Museum,Vienna

KLIMT, Gustav
Death and Life (detail)
1910-1915
Oil on canvas, 1,805 x 2,005 mm
Leopold Museum,Vienna

GAUGUIN, Paul
Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling
with the Angel)
1888
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

GAUGUIN, Paul
Vision after the Sermon (Jacob
Wrestling with the Angel) (detail)
1888
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

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GAUGUIN, Paul
Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel)
The literary source for the artwork is Genesis 32: 22-31. The story entails Jacob struggling with his conscience, with other men, and God represented by the
angel in a struggle for truth and redemption. After the struggle and blessing, Jacob was able to continue his journey, crossing the river into the Promised
Land - seen in the distant background of the image. In this biblical context, the red field is significant, differentiating between the lands of struggle from the
land of peace.
The apple tree of knowledge in the painting symbolizes man's decision to comprehend good and evil, caused by his fall from grace. Its green foliation also
symbolizes the promise of man's redemption and return to Paradise.
In the foreground of the painting, 12 Breton women and a priest watch the event. 12 is a significant number in itself, representing Jacob's progeny in
founding the 12 tribes of Israel.
Gauguin also includes a cow in the painting, further adding to the symbolism. The cow is the symbol that reveals the means of man's redemptions. In
addition to its traditional meaning, the cow is the symbolic of four Breton saints venerated as protectors of horned beasts (Saints Cornley, Nicodeme,
Herbot, and Theogonnie). Through the blessings of these saints, animals and pastures are made fertile and the sick are healed.
The Chapel of Saint Nicodemus in Brittany, and its surroundings have also been depicted.

ENSOR, James
Death and the Masks
Ensor imparts lifelike qualities to the skull of Death in the center, with its chilling grin, and to the masks of the people; the mask becomes the face, and
yet it is still a mask that tries to cover up the spiritual hollowness of the bourgeoisie and the decadence of the times.
Ensor was heir to the whole Northern tradition of caricature, the grotesque, and fantasy, as seen in the work of Hieronymus Bosch and even Pieter
Bruegel. But as opposed to the naturalistic underpinnings of the work of Bosch and Bruegel, Ensor works with a light, bright palette that suggests
whimsy and absurdity at the same time that he employs a rough and textural application of paint, which signals the depth and horror of the malaise of
the times.
Thus, Ensor's contribution to Symbolism was that before the Expressionists of the early twentieth century, he called upon raw color and savage
texture to strip down to the layers of the human psyche, plumbing its depths -- in addition to supplementing his Symbolic vocabulary with subtle
political overtones.

REDON, Odilon
Cyclops
The work of Redon portrays a dream world, inhabited by fairies, monsters, spirits and other fantasy figures. This makes him typically representative
of symbolism, an art movement in the late 19th century with a strong leaning towards the subconscious, the extraordinary and the inexplicable.
In this painting, the Cyclops Polyphemus spies on the sleeping Nereid Galathea from behind a tall mountain. The one-eyed giant’s love remains
unrequited, as Galathea prefers the river god Acis. The unnaturally large eye is the most conspicuous part of the painting. In Redon’s work, the eye is
often an all controlling, independent creature, a symbol of the human soul and of the mysterious, unknown inner world.
The menace of the giant, or rather of the eye, that spies the naked woman, is reinforced by the unusual bright colours. With this personal, dreamlike
depiction of a theme from the realm of the Greek gods, Redon has painted one of the masterpieces of symbolist art.

Demon (sitting)
The painting is the first significant work of Russian symbolism to define its central theme: the creative artist's quest for supreme beauty.
The artist he states that his hero "is a spirit, but a spirit that is not so much vicious as suffering and melancholic, but for all that, a spirit that is
majestic and power-hungry".
Demon's image is full of contradictions: a spiritual face and mighty body. The gesture of clasped strong hands is like the effort of breaking
chains. The hero is lost in melancholic contemplation of the dying colours of sunset.
But Demon's sadness is not sterile. The world around him emerges in a new transformed state. The artist portrays the metamorphosis of shapes,
with flowers appearing as crystals as a result.

MUNCH, Edvard
The Dance of Life
Munch presents the three stages of woman (all portraits of his lover Tulla Larsen): the virgin symbolized by white, the carnal woman of
experience in red, and the aged, satanic woman in black.
The sea is the beyond, eternity, the edge of life into the vast unknown, and finally, death. In the background a lone, female figure stands in front of
the Freudian male phallic symbol of the setting sun's reflection.
In the foreground a couple - Larsen and Munch, himself - is physically proximate, in fact symbolically entwined through the shapes of the lower
parts of their bodies. Their faces, however, indicate their separation from each other.
The Dance of Life is thus also a dance of death. When Munch painted Dance of Life in 1899 he was inspired by symbolism and used colours
symbolically to express different feelings: red for love, passion and pain; white for youth, innocence and joy; and black for loneliness, sorrow and
death.

KLIMT, Gustav
Death and Life
In this updating of the seventeenth-century theme of vanitas (the vanity of earthly life), Death stares across the negative space as Life reveals
itself in the figures who come into being, exist, and pass out of existence; they are born, live, and die as part of the great stream of life.
The decorative schema locks the figures in place and counteracts their existence as physical beings. Rather, they serve as symbols for states of
being. It has been pointed out that Klimt offers a note of hope; instead of feeling threatened by the figure of death, his human beings seem to
disregard it.
The painting also reflects the time and ideas of Sigmund Freud who identified the main motivating actors of the human psyche to be eros (the
sexual instinct for the purpose of the continuation of life) and thanatos (the death instinct for the purpose of ending the anxieties of life).

Symbolism, a late 19th-century movement of Post-Impressionist painting, flourished throughout Europe between 1886 and 1900
in almost every area of the arts. Initially emerging in literature, including poetry, philosophy and theatre, it then spread to music
and the visual arts.
Symbolist art had strong connections with the Pre-Raphaelites and with Romanticism, as well as the Aestheticism movement.
Like all these movements, Symbolism was in large part a reaction against naturalism and realism, and became closely
associated with mythological painting of all kinds.
Where realists and naturalists sought to capture optical reality in all its objective grittiness, and thus focused on the ordinary
rather than the ideal, Symbolists sought a deeper reality from within their imagination, their dreams, and their unconscious.
Famous symbolist painters included Gustave Moreau (1826-98), Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901), Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), Max
Klinger (1857-1920), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), James Ensor (1860-1949), Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Odilon Redon (1840-1916),
and Puvis de Chavannes.
Although shortlived, the movement had a strong influence on German art of the 19th century, and a big impact on 20th century
European artists, particularly those involved in Les Nabis and Art Nouveau, and also the Expressionism and Surrealism
movements.
It also influenced artists like Whistler, Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miro, Paul Klee, Frida Kahlo and Marc Chagall.

Art in Detail: Symbolism, The most notable Paintings

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Art in Detail: Symbolism, The most notable Paintings