Xiaoling, Cai
ARTH 2110 Modern Art History 1900 – 1945
Milda Richardson
01/30/2015

Symbolism happened in late 19-th century by its origin in poetry and other arts. One of the ironic symbolists, Charles Baudelaire, his publication of The Flowers of Evil set the beginning of its style. And later on, his other famous poem Correspondences, a masterpiece about the unity of nature, is an original French sonnet indicating the certain states of mind changed by human’s perceptions of the interdependence in sense. In his poem, sound becomes a symbol of color, perfumes evoke sights, and color reveals emotion. From then on, not only human can feel the sense of happiness and sadness, everything else is able to be a emotional being. The connection between nature and man through a mixture at things affect the senses. Therefore, our physical world – nature, is imbued with the symbols of moral meanings.
In the same synesthetic perceptive manner, Mikalojus Konstatinas Ciurlionis, a Lithuanian symbolist in music and painting, his series of Sonatas was naming by number and the marriage of music and art. Music requires a very precise perception of sounds, and the sense of catching the nature’s message by every small note. Ciurlionis applied to painting principles from the many musical compositions, just in the similar method that Baudelaire evoked emotional states by describing objects, giving them the certain ability of communication that only appears on human and animal world. Ciurlionis’ painting was rendered more abstract by the application of the structural and compositional elements of music. One of the series Sonata of