You're Symbolism!
In late 1800's the world of art was filled with
art movements which all seemed to promote
some external cause. A group of poets,
writers, and artist got fed up with this
exploitation of art, and founded a new art
movement, symbolism, whose primary cause was
to create art just for the sake of creating
art. In visual arts, symbolists were quite
flexible when it came to the technique -
their styles varied from traditional to
impressionist and expressionist - but the
contents of mystical their works of art were
always, needless to say, suymbolic. What they
painted didn't always directly correspond to
what they were actually portraying; a young
boy getting out of bed in the morning may
have portrayed coming in age, a skeleton
represented death, and an angel stood for
innosence, for instance. The right
interpretation was usually left to the
viewer. The atmosphere in symbolist works of
art was often spooky, mystical, dreamy, andsensual.
Famous symbolists: Gustave Moreau, Hugo Simberg
Picture: The Wounded Angel by Hugo Simberg -
Simberg's paintings usually contained
well-known mythical characters (such as the
crouchy skeleton-shaped Death, and the poor
little Devil) combined with a surprisinly
normal country surroundings. One of his
trademarks had portraying traditionally scare
things, like death, as pleasant, melancholic
characters who didn't seem theatening at all.
The Wounded Angel (or "- -", as
Simberg called it himself) is a very clear
example of symbolic art - metaphorically, the
idea of two young boyrs carrying a wounded
angel can be interpreted in many ways (such
as the loss of innosence or the end of childhood, for instance),
but whatever the case is, the angel in the picture is more
than just an angel.
Which Art Movement Are You? (pictures)
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