Symbolism

Author: Ma Fenglin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: Most Symbolists were cultural gentlemen. Although they resented and criticized the corruption and destruction of human thought and culture by the capitalist system, they limited their opposition to literary and artistic creation and did not wish to endorse social revolution. Symbolism despised Impressionism for its superficiality and was sharply opposed to Naturalism. It was a kind of artistic escape, using pantheistic mythological content and the guise of the New Art to depict the decadent atmosphere of the fin de siècle, presenting beauty as ugliness, and using the past to satirize the present. Although it was not without conservative and traditional tendencies, it contained many eternal elements.