31 Symbolism 1890-1920

Graverobbing, Suicide Notes, and Comic Strips

Beyond the Mystical Canvas

When we think of Symbolist art, our minds often drift to a world of dreamlike canvases, mystical figures, and scenes steeped in myth and the subconscious. It was a movement that turned away from the real world, choosing instead to explore inner states, the spiritual, and the occult through suggestion and metaphor. The paintings are enigmatic, poetic, and often otherworldly, inviting us to get lost in their mysterious atmospheres.

But behind these ethereal and haunting canvases lie stories that are anything but abstract. The artists who channeled these visions were not just passive dreamers; they were individuals whose lives were filled with shocking drama, profound tragedy, and startling contradictions. Their art, so focused on the unseen, was often forged in the fires of intense, deeply human experiences.

This article pulls back the curtain on the Symbolist era to reveal some of its most surprising and impactful backstories. From a macabre act of desperation to a single painting that captivated both a psychoanalyst and a dictator, these are the true tales that add an unexpected layer of reality to some of art history’s most mystical works.

A Poet Dug Up His Dead Wife for a Buried Manuscript

Though technically a Pre-Raphaelite, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s work strongly anticipates Symbolist themes, making him a crucial precursor to the movement. He was not just a painter but also a poet, and this dual passion led to one of the most shocking episodes in art history. After his wife and muse, Elizabeth Siddal, died from an overdose of laudanum, a grief-stricken Rossetti impulsively buried a manuscript of his unpublished poems with her in her coffin.

The story takes a darker turn. Seven years later, convinced by friends that publishing the poems was essential for his legacy, Rossetti arranged to have his wife’s body secretly exhumed to retrieve the manuscript. This haunting act casts a long shadow over his work, especially his symbolic masterpiece Beata Beatrix. The painting, a tribute to his deceased wife, depicts the moment of her spiritual transfiguration. Knowing the real-world tragedy and the desperate act that followed, the painting becomes more than a mystical vision; it is a portrait of love, loss, and obsession grounded in an almost unbelievable true story.

The Same Morbid Painting Was Collected by Freud and Hitler

Arnold Böcklin’s masterpiece, Isle of the Dead, is the definitive image of Symbolist melancholy. It depicts a small, rocky island dominated by cypress trees—ancient symbols of mourning—as a boat approaches carrying a shrouded figure and a coffin. The atmosphere is one of profound silence and finality. The artist himself said he wanted to create a work of such stillness that…

…one would be awed by a knock on the door.

The painting’s power was so universal that it became a cultural phenomenon. Among its admirers were the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, who hung a print in his office, and the dictator Adolf Hitler, who purchased one of the original versions. How could a single image of death resonate so deeply with such different minds? Böcklin called it a “picture for dreaming over,” and its genius lies in its ambiguity. It transforms a landscape into a deeply moving psychological space, allowing viewers to project their own obsessions onto its silent shores. For Freud, it may have been a universal symbol of the death drive—Thanatos—a space to contemplate mortality’s role in the human psyche. For Hitler, obsessed with grandiose mythology and heroic death, it may have appeared as a Wagnerian image of a noble, final resting place for a fallen hero.

A Famous Stockbroker Quit His Job and Painted His Suicide Note

Paul Gauguin abandoned a successful career as a stockbroker to become an artist, a journey that culminated in a monumental painting he intended as his final statement. While seeking “primitive” inspiration in Tahiti, Gauguin faced financial hardship and a deep personal crisis. It was during this period that he created his artistic testament, the massive and enigmatic canvas titled Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? The painting is a sweeping allegory of the cycle of life, flowing from birth on the right to an old woman contemplating death on the left.

Gauguin called the work a “philosophical gospel,” pouring all his energy and existential questions into it. The emotional weight of this masterpiece is underscored by a devastating fact: after completing the canvas, Gauguin attempted suicide. He survived, but the act forever frames the painting not just as a philosophical query, but as a deeply personal last will and testament born from profound despair. The painting’s title asks universal questions, but knowing the artist’s story reveals that they were questions he was desperately trying to answer for himself before an intended end.

The Master of Nightmares Found Salvation in Color

Odilon Redon began his career creating bizarre and unsettling charcoal drawings he called his “noirs,” with black being his favorite color. His early work is the stuff of nightmares. He populated his dark, shadowy drawings and lithographs with strange and unsettling subjects like floating eyeballs and spiders with human faces. These works were adored by Symbolist writers but found little public understanding. For decades, Redon worked almost exclusively in black, believing it contained all colors and could evoke the deepest emotions.

But then, everything changed. Around 1890, Redon discovered pastels, and his entire artistic practice transformed. The darkness gave way to a world of radiant, dreamlike color. Works from his later career, like The Cyclops, are flooded with impossible hues and shimmering light. This dramatic shift was more than a stylistic change; it was a profound personal and artistic evolution. Redon moved from the darkness of the subconscious to the light of the spiritual, finding a form of salvation in the very thing he had once avoided: color.

An Erotic Provocateur Was Also a Comic Strip Pioneer

The Belgian artist Félicien Rops was notorious for his shocking, erotic, and satirical art. He was a master provocateur whose work challenged the moral hypocrisy of 19th-century society. His most famous image, Pornocratès (The Ruler of Fornication), depicts a blindfolded nude woman being led by a pig—a scandalous allegory for lust triumphing over the arts. His reputation was built on blending the sensual, the satanic, and the satirical in ways that shocked his contemporaries.

Yet, this artist of the decadent and the taboo had another, more populist side. In a surprising juxtaposition, the master of the macabre is also widely considered a pioneer of Belgian comics, having created satirical strips with recurring characters. This reveals the incredible range of an artist who could simultaneously critique high society with sophisticated, erotic allegories while also helping to invent a popular art form for the masses.

The World’s Most Famous Scream Marked the End of an Era

Edvard Munch’s The Scream is more than just an iconic image of anxiety; it is a pivotal work that helped close the door on Symbolism and usher in a new, more visceral art movement. Almost everyone recognizes the skeletal figure on a bridge, hands clamped over its ears against a blood-red sky. The Screamis a universal symbol of modern angst. Artistically, however, it stands at a critical crossroads, marking the transition from Symbolism to Expressionism.

The two movements are closely related, but a key difference defines them. Symbolism hints at ideas through poetic symbols, leaving the meaning for the viewer to interpret. Expressionism, by contrast, directly thrusts raw, unvarnished emotion onto the viewer through distorted forms and jarring color. The Scream is a perfect example of this shift. It is not merely a symbol of anxiety; it is the visual equivalent of anxiety itself. This image of personal torment was so emotionally direct and powerful that it helped forge the path for a new movement that would prioritize raw psychological expression above all else.

The Human Stories Behind the Symbols

The Symbolist movement, with its focus on dreams and myths, can seem distant from our everyday reality. Yet, as these stories show, it was fueled by artists whose lives were filled with as much drama, tragedy, and contradiction as their art. The otherworldly beauty of their canvases was often a direct response to the intense, chaotic, and deeply human world they inhabited.

From Rossetti’s tragic love to Gauguin’s existential despair, these backstories don’t diminish the mystery of the paintings—they enrich it. They remind us that behind every enigmatic symbol is a human story of passion, pain, and creativity.