George Frederick Watts

Another great symbolist, it's difficult not to get Watts confused with Edward Burne-Jones.  His themes and his manner are a bit darker, and there is a kind of twist and tension in the figures that give Watts a greater emotional depth.

Pablo and Frencesca

Clytie

Denunciation of Adam and Eve

Pablo and Francesca

Eve Tempted

The Genius of Greek Poetry

Life's Illusions

What I love about the symbolists is how the compositions seem to spring from out of nowhere, throwing the standard classical templates out the window.  Who has ever seen compositions like this?,  and yet he still retains a sense of timelessness.

The Spirit of Christianity

You already know this one.

Hope

Orpheus and Euydice

Edward Burne-Jones

I prefer not to know the "meaning" of a painting before I see it.  To me it dilutes the experience to be too aware of the subject matter from the beginning.  If I have to know the story it represents or biographical information about the artist then the picture is not successful.  To literally tell a story is an illustrator's job, but a painter's job is to transcend and to touch.  The subject is handled with such poetry and such universality that any person at any time could understand it.  

Of course it can enrich and inform the experience the more one knows about the story, the historical context, the artist's life and philosophy, and the process behind the work, but I believe it is the immediate gut reaction that tells the most about the true meaning of a piece, and this is what Edward Burne-Jones does best.  It does not matter to me whether these are biblical or pagan themes, whether he was a symbolist or a pre-Raphaelite.  They are poems of line and form and transcend the superficial.

Every person dreams of flying.

One of the most poetic drawings I've seen.  

So wonderfully ghost-like.  It would almost be a shame to see it finished

Two versions of "Phyllis and Demophoon" with preliminary sketch.  It's always nice to see process work.  It appears he's using the model to work out the anatomy difficult areas but doing a large part of the work from his imagination.

Elihu Vedder

American Symbolist, 1836-1923

Some of my favorites...

Franz Von Stuck

Lately I have been looking for something severe in painting, and I am rediscovering the German symbolist Franz Von Stuck. We were both born in Bavaria on February 24th, but he was born 117 years before me.

His work is horrific, visionary, and considered barbaric by the experts. I find answers in his paintings.

Paradise Lost




Wild Chase



Judith and Holofernes


The Furies

The Inferno

Pieta

Gail Potocki

I can't get enough of Gail Potocki's work. To me she is one of the most powerful and under recognized painters working today. Gail lives in the 21st century American midwest, but paints in another time and place or maybe even outside of time-space, in other words a transdimensional (thanks D.O.J.P!) painter, and a symbolist in her own right, proving that art movements have more to do with temperament than trends.


As a believer myself that Adam and Eve are my grandparents, I love depictions of them, but find the above two paintings Particularly powerful. They are not in any way conventional which makes them more believable to me psychologically. They borrow more from the turn of the century than the renaissance. The ghosty death faces in the background are very similar to those in Gustav Klimt's "Hope".


She made Barrel of Monkeys poetic. How great.