SYMBOLISM IMAGE ARCHIV

'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I' by Gustav Klimt

This portrait of a woman was sold for $135 million in 2006. At the time it was the most expensive painting ever sold. In the painting the model is covered in a golden gown. The gown is extremely decorated with fancy details and gold leaf. The gown forms a powerful symbol of a person changing their identity as well as the hope of the future.

The Wounded Angel by Hugo Simberg

In this painting, a young angel is being carried by two boys. The angel is wounded and the two boys are very serious. One of the boys is looking directly at the viewer. The angel was a symbol of the ideal, but it was wounded when it meets with reality. It was voted Finland's national painting in 2006.

Ida Reading a Letter by Vilhelm Hammershoi

Hammershoi often painted sparse interiors and portraits with the person turned to the side or with their backs to the viewer. In this picture Ida, Hammershoi's wife, is sideways reading a letter. The door to her right is open, inviting her to leave. The table appears to have only one setting. These symbols give the viewer the feeling of loneliness that the lady is feeling while reading the letter.

Boat in the Moonlight by Odilon Redon

To understand Redon one must be a dreamer.The full moon placement reflects its power over the painting.The boat,tides,darkness, and destiny are all under its spell.All is held in a holding pattern never to be released .Redon's dreams. The Genius knows the Moon is where it should be.His work is created to make you wonder to think about it ,how inspiring. It's out of the box.Each piece of his work is a journey. Redon!

Mikhail Nesterov's The Vision of the Youth Bartholomew.

Fernand Khnopff, The Caress, 1896, oil on canvas. Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

Woman play a major role in Symbolism and in the above painting, the cheetah-like sphinx gently rests her head on an androgynous figure. In the full painting below, one detects cabbalist inscriptions on the wall behind the pair. Art historians have interpreted Khnopff’s painting as representing power, domination, seduction or perhaps simply referring to the myth of Oedipus and the sphinx. Either way, the painting is sure to catch many museum-goers off-guard.
- See more at: http://wtfarthistory.com/post/16116040157/a-bestial-caress#sthash.Lcvnfm4I.dpuf

Edvard Munch - The Scream

One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

"Sonata of the Sea. Finale" (1908) by Lithuanian painter Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis

"The death of the gravedigger" by Carlos Schwabe is a visual compendium of symbolist motifs. Death and angels, pristine snow, and the dramatic poses of the characters all express symbolist longings for transfiguration "anywhere, out of the world."

Alexandre Benois's illustration to "The Bronze Horseman"

The cover to Aleksander Blok's 1909 book, Theatre. Konstantin Somov's illustrations for the Russian symbolist poet display the continuity between symbolism and Art Nouveau artists such as Aubrey Beardsley.