num_pages: 256
description: To clothe the idea in perceptible form proposed the poet Jean Moreas in his 1886 Manifesto of Symbolism. It was in France and Belgium the cradles of literary Symbolism that Symbolist painting was born. It plunged headlong into the cultural space opened up by the poetry of Baudelaire and Mallarme and by the operas of Wagner. Symbolist painters sought not to represent appearances but to express the Idea and the imaginary therefore plays an important part in their work. Dream was their credo; they execrated with a fanatical hatred impressionism realism naturalism and the scientistic. The main principle of Symbolism that of correspondences was to attain harmony between all the different arts or even to realise the total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk) that Wagner had dreamt of creating. What we rediscover today after a period of neglect is Symbolist painting is essential to our understanding of modern art not only because it spread across the world like wildfir
language: English
title: Symbolism
publisher: Taschen