The Transition from Naturalism to Symbolism in the Theater from 1880 to 1900

Like Pre-Raphaelitism, which anticipated it, and Expressionism, which succeeded it, the Symbolist movement at the end of the nineteenth century cut across the fields of both literature and painting. Consequently, it would seem that one could understand the movement and grasp what lay behind it either by looking at pictures or by reading books. But, distrusting those blinkered approaches, cultural historians have preferred to compare the two forms of expression, hoping to find similarities in technique and parallel developments in thought. In theory, the most revealing art form would be that in which the verbal and visual elements are fused. That art is, of course, the art of the theater, and a look at what happened in the theater at the end of the nineteenth century may help us to understand why Symbolism came to the fore at that particular time and what its function was in the development of European thought.