Symbolism. Nathalia Brodskaya

Oaks and Dryads, c. 1908.

      Watercolour and gouache on paper, 21 × 28 cm.

      Private collection.

      Odilon Redon, Veiled Woman, c. 1895–1899.

      Pastel, 47.5 × 32 cm.

      Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.

      As to literature, the main enemy and opponent of Symbolism in it remained realism. In the humdrum of life Symbolism opposed mysticism, the mystery of the “other worldly”, the search for the latent sense in any phenomenon or image. It drew attention to the huge, incomprehensible world surrounding us, asking us to discover the mysterious meaning of being, which is accessible only to a true creator. Instead of mere observation of life, it put forward an unusual imagination, inaccessible to the ordinary artist. Searching for the secrets of this imagination, twentieth-century surrealists turned precisely to Symbolism. In The Manifesto of Surrealism André Breton said that the poet-Symbolist Saint-Pol-Roux, going to bed, hung up on his door a note with the request to not disturb him, because “the poet is at work”. However, Symbolists did not mean literally the images coming to the artist in a dream. Sung by them, both in literature and in painting, the dream was a demonstration and even a symbol of their exceptional imagination, capable of transcending reality.

      Odilon Redon, Closed Eyes, 1890.

      Oil on canvas remounted on board, 44 × 36 cm.

      Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

      It seemed that with the death of Hugo in 1883, Romanticism, in the atmosphere of which the artists of the middle of the century created, finally left. Analysing Symbolism, Saint-Pol-Roux said: “Romanticism sang only sparkles, and shells, and small insects that come across in sandy thickness. Naturalism has counted every single grain of sand, whereas the future generation of writers, having played long enough with this sand, will blow it away in order to reveal a symbol hidden under it…”.[1] Although the contemporaries of post-Impressionism considered Romanticism obsolete, in reality it was not able to regenerate itself for some time, yielding under the pressure of realism in all its aspects. But Symbolism had become its closest heir. The researchers of Symbolism even sometimes called it “post-Romanticism”. Like the Romanticism of the first half of the nineteenth century, Symbolism appeared the brightest and the fullest style in the realm of literature. Nevertheless, it had penetrated the arts.

      Alphonse Osbert, Muse at Sunrise, 1918.

      Oil on wood panel, 38 × 46 cm.

      Private collection.

      Hugo Simberg, The Wounded Angel, 1903.

      Oil on canvas, 127 × 154 cm.

      Ateneumin taidemuseo, Helsinki.

      Symbolism in literature, which Jean Moréas introduced and defined in his manifesto in 1886, was to become a fully-fledged genre. Moréas established that every renewal of a genre met the corresponding decrepitude and atrophy of a previous school. “Romanticism, ringing loudly the alarm bell of riot and surviving the days of battle and glorious victories, lost its strength and attraction…, it surrendered to naturalism…,” he wrote. Consequently, naturalism was subjected to the severest criticism and accusations by the ideologists of Symbolism. Emile Zola remained for them the embodiment of naturalism in literature. Despite his admiration for Zola’s talent, Mallarmé considered his works to be on the lowest level of literature. Moreover, Remy de Gourmont, in the heat of the struggle, called Zola’s writings “culinary art” that merely borrows the ready “pieces of life”,[2] ignoring ideas and symbols. Replying to the question about naturalism, Stéphane Mallarmé found a literary image from the treasury of Symbolists for its definition. “So far, literature imagined quite childlike,” he said, “as if, having gathered precious stones, and then, having written down – albeit even very beautifully – their names on paper, it thus makes precious stones. Nothing of the kind!… Things exist apart from us, and it is not our task to create them; we are required just to capture connections between them…”.[3]

      Charles Baudelaire splendidly stated the priority of these connections in the new world perspective in his Correspondances:

      Nature’s a temple where down each corridor

      of living pillars, darkling whispers roll,

      – a symbol-forest every pilgrim soul

      must pierce, ‘neath gazing eyes it knew before.

      Nature tries to talk to man in its own language, but man is unable to understand it; this language is full of obscure symbols, and it would be vain to look for their solutions. The magnetic force of Symbolism, in contrast with the simplicity and clarity of naturalism, consists precisely in its enigmatic quality, in the deeply-hidden mystery, the revelation of which actually does not exist. The difference between Symbolism and naturalism was best explained by Emile Verhaeren. “Here, before the poet, is the night Paris – the myriads of luminescent specks in the boundless sea of darkness,” writes Verhaeren. “He (the writer) can reproduce this image directly, as Zola would have done: to describe streets, squares, monuments, gas-burners, ink-like darkness, feverish animation under the gaze of immobile stars – undoubtedly, he will achieve an artistic effect, but there will be no trace of Symbolism. However, he can gradually infuse the same image into the reader’s imagination, having said, for example: ‘This is a gigantic cryptogram, the key to which is lost,’ – and then, without any descriptions and enumeration, he will find room in one phrase for the entire Paris – its light, darkness, and magnificence”.[4]

      Only the chosen one, only a lone artist is capable to create the abstracted from actual reality, generalised, symbolic image. Quoting Mallarmé, “This is the person, intentionally secluding himself in order to sculpt his own gravestone”.[5] Symbolists create something like the cult of the chosen loner. Listing the qualities inherent in Symbolism, Remy de Gourmont first of all names individualism, creative freedom, the renunciation of studied formulae, the aspiration for everything new, unusual, even strange. “Symbolism… is nothing else than the expression of artistic individualism”,[6] he wrote in The Book of Masks, illustrating his thesis by the brilliant literary portraits of poet-Symbolists.

      Jacek Malczewski, Thanatos I, 1898.

      Oil on canvas, 134 × 74 cm.

      The National Museum, Warsaw.

      Edgard Maxence, The Concert of Angels, 1897.