the end of the 19th century, the representation of nature became
completely subjective. Artists no longer sought to imitate nature but
created free interpretations of it, concerned solely with expressing
their individual spirit. They rejected the optical world as observed in
favor of a fantasy world, of forms they conjured in their free imagi-
nation, with or without reference to things conventionally seen.
Color, line, and shape, divorced from conformity to the optical im-
age, became symbols of personal emotions in response to the world.
Deliberately choosing to stand outside of convention and tradition,
artists spoke like prophets, in signs and symbols.
Many of the artists following this path adopted an approach to
subject and form that associated them with a general European move-
ment called Symbolism.Symbolists, whether painters or writers, dis-
dained Realism as trivial. The task of Symbolist visual and verbal artists
was not to see things but to see through them to a significance and re-
ality far deeper than what superficial appearance gave. In this function,
as the poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) insisted, artists became be-
ings of extraordinary insight. (One group of Symbolist painters called
itself theNabis,the Hebrew word for “prophet.”) Rimbaud, whose po-
ems had great influence on the artistic community, went so far as to say,
in his Letter from a Seer(1871), that to achieve the seer’s insight, artists
must become deranged. In effect, they must systematically unhinge
and confuse the everyday faculties of sense and reason, which served
only to blur artistic vision. The artists’ mystical vision must convert the
objects of the commonsense world into symbols of a reality beyond
that world and, ultimately, a reality from within the individual. Ele-
ments of Symbolism appeared in the works of van Gogh and Gauguin,
but their art differed from mainstream Symbolism in their insistence
on showing unseen powers as linked to a physical reality, instead of at-
tempting to depict an alternate, wholly interior life.
The extreme subjectivism of the Symbolists led them to cultivate
all the resources of fantasy and imagination, no matter how deeply
buried or obscure. Moreover, they urged artists to stand against the
vulgar materialism and conventional mores of industrial and middle-
class society. Above all, the Symbolists wished to purge literature and
art of anything utilitarian, to cultivate an exquisite aesthetic sensitivity,
and to make the slogan “art for art’s sake” into a doctrine and a way of
life. The subjects of the Symbolists, conditioned by this reverent atti-
tude toward art and exaggerated aesthetic sensation, became increas-
ingly esoteric and exotic, mysterious, visionary, dreamlike, and fantas-
tic. Perhaps not coincidentally, contemporary with the Symbolists,
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, began
the age of psychiatry with his Interpretation of Dreams (1900), an in-
troduction to the concept and the world of unconscious experience.
PIERRE PUVIS DE CHAVANNES Although he never for-
mally identified himself with the Symbolists, the French painter
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes(1824–1898) became the “prophet” of
those artists. Puvis rejected Realism and Impressionism and went his
own way in the 19th century, serenely unaffected by these movements.
He produced an ornamental and reflective art—a dramatic rejection
of Realism’s noisy everyday world. InSacred Grove (FIG. 31-22),
which may have influenced Seurat’s Grande Jatte(FIG. 31-15), he de-
ployed statuesque figures in a tranquil landscape with a classical
shrine. Suspended in timeless poses, the figures’ contours are simple
and sharp, and their modeling is as shallow as bas-relief. The calm
and still atmosphere suggests some consecrated place, where all
movements and gestures have a permanent ritual significance. The
stillness and simplicity of the forms, the linear patterns their rhyth-
mic contours create, and the suggestion of their symbolic weight
constitute a type of anti-Realism. Puvis garnered support from a
wide range of artists. The conservative French Academy and the gov-
ernment applauded his classicism. The Symbolists revered Puvis for
his vindication of imagination and his independence from the capi-
talist world of materialism and the machine.
GUSTAVE MOREAU In keeping with Symbolist tenets,
Gustave Moreau(1826–1898) gravitated toward subjects inspired
by dreaming, which was as remote as possible from the everyday
world. Moreau presented these subjects sumptuously, and his natural
love of sensuous design led him to incorporate gorgeous color, intri-
cate line, and richly detailed shape.Jupiter and Semele (FIG. 31-23)
is one of the artist’s rare finished works. The mortal girl Semele, one
of Jupiter’s loves, begged the god to appear to her in all his majesty.
When he did, the sight was so powerful that she died from it.31-23Gustave Moreau,Jupiter and Semele,ca. 1875. Oil on canvas,
7 3 4 . Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris.
Moreau favored subjects inspired by dreaming. In this painting, the ap-
parition of Jupiter with his halo of thunderbolts overwhelms the mortal
Semele, who dies upon seeing so powerful a sight.Symbolism 8391 ft.31-23AMOREAU,
The Apparition,
1874–1876.