From the Age of Symbolism to Expressionism

Symbolism
Symbolism was both an artistic and a literary movement that suggested ideas through symbols
and emphasized the meaning behind the forms, lines, shapes and colors. Symbolism can also be seen as
being at the forefront of modernism, in that it developed new and often abstract means to express
psychological truth and the idea that behind the physical world lay a spiritual reality. Symbolists could
take the ineffable, such as dreams and visions and give it form.
Symbolism in the visual arts had its sources in early 19 th century Romanticism’s emphasis on the
imagination, rather than reason, and the themes first evident in the writer Charles Baudelaire’s Les
Fleurs du Mal. Additional sources include the personal visions of painter and poet William Blake, the
aestheticism of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England, and the poetic, allegorical, moody dream
worlds created by Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, and the Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.
Symbolism was in many ways a reaction against the moralism, rationalism and materialism of
the 1880s. This fin-de-siècle period was a period of malaise – a sickness of dissatisfaction. Artists felt a
need to go beyond naturalism in art, and like other forms of art and entertainment at the time, such as
ballet and the cabaret, Symbolism served as a means of escape.

Symbolist Theory and Albert Aurier

An offshoot of the literary Symbolism that influenced visual art was the field of art criticism,
particularly that f Albert Aurier. In 1891 he wrote, in what became essentially a Symbolist manifesto that
art should be:
1. Ideiste (Ideative)…. Expressing an idea.
2. Symbolist since it expresses that idea through form
3. Synthetic since it expresses those forms and signs in a way that is generally understandable
4. Subjective since the object… is only an indication of an idea perceived by the subject
5. And as a result it will also be Decorative….. since decorative painting is at once an art that is
synthetic, symbolist and ideative.

Concepts and Styles

The period in which the Symbolists worked as marked by confusion regarding moral, social,
religious, and intellectual attitudes. The world was expanding beyond European norms; socialism no
longer consisted of the benevolent intentions with which it set out. The relationship between love and
marriage was being questioned, as was religion. Artists in particular felt that they were isolated and
separate from the bourgeoisie. Yet the idea of the spiritual was very important in the development of
Symbolism and reflected the anti-materialist philosophies that were concerned with mysticism (a direct
connection and unity with the ultimate reality). An interest in the occult was related to this concept, as
was a taste for the morbid and perverse, as this period is often described as one of “decadence” (a
period of artistic or moral decline as seen in the preference for the artificial over the natural- and by
extension, the idea that even humanity was in decline). English writer Oscar Wilde’s works and the
French writer Joris-Karl Huysman’s A Rebour (Against Nature), as well as the art of many of the
Symbolists, reflect this decadence.
The most important art of the symbolist is Death and the Masks by James Ensor.
Art Nouveau (emphasis on natural forms and structure)
Art Nouveau, ornamental style of art that flourished between about 1890 and 1910 throughout
Europe and the United States. Art Nouveau is characterized by its use of a long, sinuous, organic line and
was employed most often in architecture, interior design, jewelry and glass design, posters and
illustration. It was a deliberate attempt to create a new style, free of the imitative historicism that
dominated much of 19th century art and design. Art Nouveau developed first in England and soon spread
to the European continent, where it was called Jugendstil in Germany, Sezessionstil in Australia, Stile
Floreale (Stile Liberty) in Italy and Modernismo (Modernista) in Spain. The term ‘Art Nouveau’ was
coined by a gallery in Paris that exhibited much of this work.

History of Art Nouveau

The term “Art Nouveau” stemmed from the name of the Parisian art gallery called “La Maison
de I’Art Nouveau”, owned by the avant-garde art collector Seigfried Bing, which showcased works
created in the Art Nouveau style. The gallery’s reputation and frame was considerably boosted by its
installations of modern furniture, tapestries and objects d’art at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, after
which the gallery’s name became almost synonymous with the style.
At the same time, In Belgium the style was promoted by Les Vingt and La Libre Esthetique,
while in Germany the style was popularized and promoted by a magazine called Jugend: Munchner
illustrierte Wochenschrift fur Kunst und Leben (Youth: the illustrated weekly magazine of art and
lifestyle of Munich), which is why German Art Nouveau countries – has since been known as
“Jugendstil” (youth-style). In Austria, Art Nouveau was first popularized by artist of the Vienna Secession
movement, leading to the adoption of the name “Sezessionstil”. In fact, the Vienna Secessionists, like
Joseph Maria Olbrich, influenced art and architecture throughout Austria and Hungary. In Germany,
after the Munich Secession and the Berlin Secession, many of its leading practitioners came together
again in 1907 as members of the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation).

Characteristics of Art Nouveau

There is no single definition or meaning of Art Nouveau. But the following are the distinguishing
factors:
1. Art Nouveau philosophy was in favor of applying artistic designs to everyday objects, in order to
make beautiful things available to everyone. No object was too utilitarian to be “beautified”.
2. Art Nouveau saw no separation in principle between fine art (painting and sculpture) and
applied or decorative arts (ceramics, furniture and other practical objects).
3. In content, the style was a reaction to a world of art which was dominated by the precise
geometry of Neoclassical forms. It sought a new graphic design language, as far away as possible
from the historical and classical models employed by the arts academies.
4. Art Nouveau remains something of an umbrella term which embraces a variety of stylistic
interpretations: some artists used new low-cost materials and mass production methods while
others used more expensive materials and valued high craftsmanship.

Types of Design
In line with the Art Nouveau philosophy that art should become part of everyday life, it
employed flat, decorative patterns that could be used in al art forms. Typical decorative elements
include leaf and tendril motifs, intertwined organic forms, mostly curvaceous in shape, although right-
angled designs were also prevalent in Scotland and in Austria. Art made in this style typically depicted
lavish birds, flowers, insects and other zoomorphs, as well as the hair and curvaceous bodies of beautiful
women. For Art Nouveau architectural designs, see the exaggerated bulbous forms of the Spanish
architect Antoni Gaudi and the stylistic Parisian Metro entrances of Hector Guimard.
Applications
Art Nouveau designs were common in glassware, jelwellery and other decorative objects like
ceramics. But the style was also applied to textiles, household, silver, domestic utensils, cigarette cases,
furniture and lighting, as well as drawing, poster art, painting and book illustration. Theatrical design of
sets and costumes was another area in which the new style flourished. The best examples are the
designs created by Leon Bakst and Alexander Benois for Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes. Art Nouveau
also had a strong application in the field of architecture and interior design. In this area it exemplified a
more humanistic and less functionalist approach to the urban environment. Hyperbolas and parabolas in
windows, arches and doors were typical as were plant-derived forms for moldings. Art Nouveau interior
designers updated some of the more abstract elements of Rococo style, such as flame and shell textures
and also employed highly stylized organic forms, expanding the ‘natural’ repertoire to include seaweed,
grasses and insects. Art Nouveau architectural designs made broad use of exposed iron and large,
irregular pieces of glass.

Famous Art Nouveau Artists

The two greatest graphic artists of the Art Nouveau movement were the:
1. Jules Cheret – French lithographer, whose invention of “3-stone chromolithography” made Art
Nouveau poster art feasible
2. Alphonse Mucha – Czech lithographer and designer, whose celebrated posters epitomized the
Art Nouveau idiom
Other famous artists:
1. Emile Galle of France and Louis Comfort Tiffany of United States were famous for their
colourful Art Nouveau glassware,
2. Aubrey Beardsley and Walter Crane for their wonderful Art Nouveau drawings
3. Rene Lalique – French jewellery designer
4. Gustav Klimt – Viennese painter
5. Stanislaw Wyspianski – Polish Theatrical designer and stained glass artist
6. Charles Rennie Mackintosh – Scottish architect and designer, leader of the Glasgow School

Legacy and Influence of Art Nouveau

While Art Nouveau promoted a more widespread adoption of “beautiful” design, it did not
diminish the value of the machine or mass-production (as the Arts and Crafts Movement did), but
instead took advantage of many technological innovations from the late 19 th century.
Possibly its greatest influence was on
1. 2oth century advocates of integrated design, such as the German Bauhaus design school and the
Dutch design movement De Stijl; and
2. Graphic art such as illustration and poster-design
Nowadays, Art Nouveau is viewed as an important bridge between Neoclassicism and modernism,
and a number of its monuments are on the UNESCO World Heritage List, notably the historic centre
of Riga, Latvia with over 750 buildings in the Art Nouveau style.

Fauvism (extremely bright color art works)

Fauvism is a style of painting that flourished on France around the turn of the 20 th century.
Fauve artists used pure, brilliant color aggressively applied straight from the paint tubes to create a
sense of an explosion on the canvas.
 The Fauves painted directly from nature, as the Impressionist had before them, but Fauvist
works were invested with a strong expressive reaction to the subjects portrayed. First formally
exhibited in Paris in 1905, Fauvist paintings shocked visitors to the annual Salon d’Automne; one of
these visitors was the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who, because of the violence of their works, dubbed
the painters fauves or “wild beasts”.
The leader of the group was Henri Matisse, who had arrived at the Fauve style after
experimenting with the various Post-Impressionist approaches of Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh
and Georges Seurat. Matisse’s studies led him to reject traditional renderings of three-dimensional
space and to seek instead a new picture space defined by movement of color. He exhibited his
famous Woman with the Hat at the 1905 exhibition. In this painting, brisk strokes of color – blues,
greens and reds – form an energetic, Woman with the Hat by Henri Matisse expressive view of the
woman. The crude paint application, which left areas of raw canvas exposed, was appalling to
viewers at the time.

Other Fauvist Painter

The other major Fauvists were Andre Derain, who had attended school with Matisse in 1898-99
and Maurice de Vlaminck, who was Derain’s friend. They shared Matisse’s interest in the expressive
function of color in painting and they first exhibited together in 1905. Derain’ Fauvist paintings
translate every tone of a landscape into pure color, which he applied with short, forceful
brushstrokes. The agitated swirls of intense color in Vlaminck’s works are indebted to the expressive
power of van Gogh.
For most of these artists, Fauvism was a transitional, learning stage. By 1908 a revived interest in
Paul Cezanne’s vision of the order and structure of nature had led many of them to reject the
turbulent emotionalism of Fauvism in favor of the logic of Cubism. Matisse alone pursued the course
he had pioneered, achieving a sophisticated balance between his own emotions and the world he
painted.

Characteristics of Fauvism
The characteristics of Fauvism include:
1. A radical use of unnatural colors that separated color from its usual representational and
realistic role , giving new, emotional meaning of the colors
2. Creating a strong unified work that appears flat on the canvas
3. Showing individual expressions and emotions of the painter instead of creating paintings based
on theories of what painting should look like with objects represented as they appear in nature
4. Bold brush strokes using paint straight from the tube instead of preparing and mixing it.

Expressionism (spiritual rebirth in a materialistic age)

Expressionism is an artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but
rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person. The artist
accomplishes this aim through to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and
responses that objects and events arouse within a person. The artist accomplishes this aim through
distortion, exaggeration, primitivism and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent or dynamic
application of formal elements. In the broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in
the later 19th century and the 20th centuries, and its qualities of highly objective, personal, spontaneous
self-expression are typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements. Expressionism can also
be seen as a permanent tendency in Germanic and Nordic art from at least the European Middle Ages,
particularly in times of social change or spiritual crisis, and in this sense it forms the converse of the
rationalist and classicizing tendencies of Italy and later of France.
The term “Expressionism” is thought to have been coined in 1910 by Czech art historian
Antonin Matejcek, who intended it to denote the opposite of Impressionism. Whereas the
Impressionists sought to express the majesty of nature and the human form through paint, the
Expressionists, according to Matejcek, sought only to express inner life, often via the painting of harsh
and realistic subject matter. It should be noted, however, that neither Die Brucke, nor similar sub-
movements, ever referred to themselves as Expressionist, and, in the early years of the century, the
term was widely used to apply to a variety of styles, including Post-Impressionism.

The Advent of Expressionism in Germany

Although it included various artists and styles, Expressionism first emerged in 1905, when a
group of four German architecture students who desired to become painters – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,
Fritz Bleyl, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Erich Heckel – formed thee group Die Brucke (the Bridge) in the
city of Dresden. A few years later, in 1911, a like-minded group of young artist formed Der Blaue Reiter
(The Blue Rider) in Munich, after the rejection of Wassily Kandinsky’s painting The Last Judgment from a
local exhibition. In addition to Kadinsky, the group included Franz Marc, Paul Klee, and August Macke,
among others, all of whom made up the loosely associated group.
Expressionism was a dominant style in Germany in the years immediately following the World
War I, where it suited the postwar atmosphere of cynicism, alienation and disillusionment. Some of the
movement’s later practitioners, such as George Grosz and Otto Dix, developed more pointed, socially
critical blend of Expressionism and Realism known as the Neue Sachlichkeit (“New Objectivity”). As can
be seen from such labels as Abstract Expressionism and Neo-Expressionism, the spontaneous, instinctive
and highly emotional qualities of Expressionism have been shared by several subsequent art movements
in the 20th century.

Characteristics of Expressionism
Expressionist art tried to convey emotion and meaning rather than reality. Each artist had his
own unique way of “expressing” his emotions in his art. In order to express emotion, the subjects are
often distorted or exaggerated. At the same time, colors are often vivid and shocking.

Famous Expressionist Artists

1. Max Beckman – A German painter who has against the Expressionist movement. However,
many of his paintings are described as Expressionist.
2. James Ensor – A Dutch painter who had great influence on the expressionist movement in the
Germany.
3. Oskar Kokoschka – An Austrian artist whose artwork was displayed in the German magazine
‘The Storm’ The Storm’ when expressionism became a true art movement.
4. August Macke – A leading member of the expressionist group “The Blue Rider’ in Germany, he
also painted some abstract art.
5. Franz Marc – A founding member ‘The Blue Rider’ group, Franz Marc was one of the leaders in
the Expressionist movement
6. Edward Munch – A Symbolist and Expressionist, Munch is best known for his famous painting
‘The Scream’.
 7. Egon Schiele – An early adopter of Expressionism, Egon died at the young age of 28.

Decline of the Movement

The decline of Expressionism was hastened by the vagueness of its longing for a better world, by
its use of highly poetic language, and in general the intensely personal and inaccessible nature of its
mode of presentation. The partial reestablishment of stability in Germany after 1924 and the growth of
more overtly political styles of social realism hastened the movement’s decline in the 1920s.
Expressionism was definitively killed by the advent of the Nazis to power in 1933. They branded the
work of almost all Expressionists as degenerate and forbade them to exhibit or publish and eventually
even to work. Many Expressionists went into exile in the United States and other countries.