ART AND LIFE
It is through symbols that man consciously or unconsciously lives, works and has his being. — Thomas Carlyle
In art history Symbolism was an actual movement in which pictorial means were used to convey allegorical meanings. Throughout history, however, artists have used symbols and symbolism, especially in religious iconography.
To illustrate the difference between symbolism and representational art, picture a cave drawing of several buffalo images with a dotted line crossing a bunch of wavy lines. This representational piece is telling people where the buffalo are and how to get there. (They are across the river.)
If one of the buffalo has wings and is flying above the herd, it might be some kind of early symbolic expression. (“The gods granted me an opportunity to take one.”) If there is a large tripod-like creature lifting one of the buffalo and a screeching noise being emitted with a beam of light coming out disintegrating the other buffaloes, then you are looking at an early telling of War of the Worlds. Later historians would then endlessly debate whether this was Realism or Fantasy.
All this to say that symbolism is as much a part of art as metaphors are to poetry. For example, in David Bowie’s Is There Life On Mars? the line, “look at those cave men go” is not referring to…
