Symbolism Overview

Symbolism is a late-nineteenth-century literary movement centred mostly around the work of poets such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, and the later Maurice Maeterlinck, as well as novelists like Joris-Karl Huysmans and Edouard Dujardin. Although Tristan Corbière died in 1875, he is an important figure associated with the movement thanks to his image as a poète maudit (‘poet of the damned’) and to this poetic style. A broad term that occasionally extends to early twentieth-century modernists like T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound, Symbolism is traditionally dated from circa 1870 to 1900. (The term ‘Symbolist’ was coined by Jean Moréas in the review La Vogue in 1886.) The movement became more international in the 1890s with the emergence of European Symbolism such as Russian Symbolism, German Symbolism etc., and with poets such as Emile Nelligan in Canada. Of equal importance is its influence as an artistic movement. Symbolism reacted to broader cultural tendencies related to scientific and literary Positivism such as Realism and Naturalism, and the language of the popular press, particularly as it appeared in the form of best-sellers. Where popular language informs the public with moral narratives, Symbolist language tries to avoid such a reduction.

Sabogal, José (1888–1956)

Long associated with the Peruvian ‘indigenista’ movement, Sabogal was lauded by the Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui as a truly ‘Peruvian painter’. The definition of the modern and historic concept of the meaning of Peruvian identity was constantly in flux in the early to the mid-twentieth century, and as such, the artist would fall in and out of favour with the various factions. However, Sabogal’s representation of the Indigenous people of Peru and his commitment to Peruvian history, including the inheritance of Incan culture, served as the beginning of a cultural preservation of this heritage, and engendered the reimagination of the ‘Indian’ by generations of Peruvian artists.

Tonalism

Tonalism is an often under-appreciated aspect of Australian painting, which developed from the mid-1910s to the 1950s. A technique pioneered by Max Meldrum (1875–1955) it is different to the use of tone developed by artists such as Leonard da Vinci (1452–1519) and Johannes Vermeer (1632–75). Traditionally, European artists worked from dark to light, building up the painted surface to model form and create realistic effects as part of the will to produce illusionistic forms and space on a two-dimensional painted surface. This process is based on closely observed preliminary sketches. In Australia, the technique developed by Meldrum involved the blocking in of tonal impressions with no under-drawing or outlines.

Schiaparelli, Elsa (1890–1973)

Elsa Luisa Maria Schiaparelli was an avant-garde fashion designer extremely influential in the 1930s. Born in Rome into a well-to-do family, an early mésalliance with William de Wendt de Kerlo forced her to live in poverty in London and New York until she moved to Paris where she met avant-garde artists and—without ever having learned to sew—began her career in fashion. In contrast to Coco Chanel’s modernist simplicity, Schiaparelli indulged in aesthetic exaggerations and a profusion of fantastic decorations such as luxurious embroideries (realized by François Lesage, 1929–2011), often inspired by surrealist art.

Nsukka School

The Nsukka School, which is named after the University of Nigeria at Nsukka, was a group of artists and faculty members associated with the use of uli—a form of body and mural decorative painting indigenous to the Igbo culture of Nigeria—in their work and are considered disciples of Uche Okeke’s teachings and artistic influence. The Uli experiment sought to address Okeke’s call for ‘natural synthesis’ in the visual arts of Nigeria and the formation of an art appropriate for the post-Independence age. Other members of the group who experimented with uli forms through painting and drawing were Chike Aniakor and Obiora Udechukwu, followed by their students Tayo Adenaike and Olu Oguibe.

Fifth Moon Art Group (Wu yue hua hui)

Wu yue hua hui, also referred to in English as the Fifth Moon art group, was formed in May 1957 by a group of painters who were graduates from the Art Department at the National Taiwan Normal University. Its core members included Liu Kuo-sung (Liu Guosong, 劉國松), Chuang Tse (Zhuang Zhi, 莊喆), Feng Chung-jui (Feng Zhongrui, 馮 鍾 睿), Kuo Tung-jung (Guo Dongrong, 郭東榮), Li Fang-chih (Li Fangzhi, 李芳枝), Kuo Yu-lun (Guo Yulun, 郭豫倫), Chen Jing-rong (陳景容), and Ku Fu-Sheng (Gu Fusheng, 顧福生), and they were subsequently joined by other artists including Chen Ting-shi (陳庭詩) and Han Hsiang-ning (Han Xiangning, 韓湘寧).

Bouabré, Frédéric Bruly (1923–2014)

Frédéric Bruly Bouabré is one of the best-known contemporary African artists. His drawings first gained international exposure in 1989 when exhibited in the groundbreaking show Magiciens de la Terre (Beaubourg-La Villette, Paris). Since then he has participated in a number of major international exhibitions: Africa Now (1991), Trade Routes-2nd Johannesburg Biennale (1997), Global Conceptualism (1999), Documenta 11 (2002), Africa Remix (2004–7), Biennale de Venise (2013). His artwork succeeds in challenging the gap between supporters of outsider art and those of conceptual art. Born in the early 1920s into an Ivory Coast farming culture, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré served in the French Navy, worked for the police department in Dakar, Senegal, and held various clerical positions in the colonial administration. In 1948 he had a mystical vision that inspired him to start his own religion, the Order of the Persecuted. He was mainly known by ethnologists as a prophet before his prolific writing and drawing caught the attention of French curator André Magnin.

Tsvetaeva, Marina (ЦВЕТАЕВА, Марина) (1892–1941)

One of the best-known and influential Russian modernist poets, Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941) wrote lyric and narrative poetry, plays, autobiographical and memoir prose, and essays in literary history and criticism. Her biography is so full of incident that it can tend to crowd out her poetry in studies of her life. Born in Moscow, she began her poetic career among the Moscow Symbolists but never joined a poetic school. She wrote all through the revolution and made a splash when she was able to publish again in the early 1920s. After emigrating in 1922 she wrote and published a great deal of poetry, but later she switched largely to prose, at least in part because it was easier to publish. Her culminating book of poetry is After Russia (Paris, 1928). Tsvetaeva returned to the USSR for family reasons in June of 1939. There she worked as a translator; she committed suicide in August 1941. Since her work began appearing more widely in the 1960s, Tsvetaeva has been recognized as a ground-breaking poet, impacting writers and poets all over the world, and she is of particular interest to feminist critics and scholars.

Russian Modernism (1890–1934)

Russian modernism arose as a rejection of positivism and the realism of the major nineteenth-century Russian novelists such as Lev Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Ivan Turgenev. In its first phase it was marked by a rekindled interest in poetry, mysticism, and symbolism. There was also a tendency to seek a fusion of different forms of artistic expression: poetry, music, painting, and theatre. Playwrights reflected the move away from naturalism towards the theatricality of commedia dell’arte and metadrama (the play within the play). In prose there emerged a new decorative style and new themes such as sexuality. The Russian Revolution of 1917 signalled an important shift towards the avant-garde. Poets adopted radical new poetic forms, glorified the new machine age or hearkened back to the pre-historical roots myth, and experimented with invented, abstract language. Prose writers shifted towards a stark new factual style that incorporated documents and slogans. Their themes were the revolutionary changes in Russia and their own inadequacy in the face of the new Soviet man. The avant-garde received its death-blow with the promulgation of Socialist Realism as the mandatory style for all publishing authors at the All-Union Writers’ Conference in 1934.

Murry, John Middleton (1889–1957)

John Middleton Murry, born in Peckham, London on 6 August 1889, was a prolific English writer best known today as the husband and literary executor of Katherine Mansfield. The son of an internal revenue clerk, determined to overcome his lower-middle-class surroundings, Murry won a scholarship to Christ’s Hospital, Sussex, and another to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first in Classics. He founded the journal Rhythm, beginning the editorial and critical labours that defined his reputation during his life. Murry edited a succession of literary magazines—most influentially, the Athanaeum. He steadily produced volumes of literary criticism, politics, religion, and other non-fiction until his death, drawing attention (and often ire) for his radical politics and his critical disagreements with T.S. Eliot.