symbolist movement

British  

noun

1. (usually capital) a movement beginning in French and Belgian poetry towards the end of the 19th century with the verse of Mallarmé, Valéry, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Maeterlinck, and others, and seeking to express states of mind rather than objective reality by making use of the power of words and images to suggest as well as denote

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Example Sentences

His mystic tones can be discerned in the smoky light of Monet’s Impression: Sunrise, and they shaped the late-19th-century symbolist movement, which turned away from exterior reality into poetic distillations of feeling.

From The Guardian • Jan. 19, 2021

Gideon Klein was another ghetto inmate, influenced by the symbolist movement and poetry of Baudelaire, and his searing, beautiful string trio piece forms part of next weekend's programme.

From The Guardian • Jun. 12, 2010

Bonnard and Vuillard shared a studio, and were the leading painters in the French symbolist movement that met regularly at St�phane Mallarm�'s "Tuesdays."

From Time Magazine Archive

He accepted "symbolism," and he became the leader of the symbolist movement, of which his stern mental training and curious erudition permitted him to be the brain.

From Aspects and Impressions by Gosse, Edmund

To a limited extent, of course, he has succeeded in fixing the color of the symbolist movement in music.

From Musical Portraits Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers by Rosenfeld, Paul