Symbolism in Art

Contemporary English artist Tracey Emin (born 1963) is known for producing work that includes raw autobiography and elements of confession art. She uses a combination of found items, photography, film, sculpture and painting.

Damien Hirst is a central figure in contemporary art. One of the wealthiest living artists, his work divides opinions and he has become synonymous with shock value an displays of dead or decaying animal corpses.

English orientalist painter John Frederick Lewis (1805-1876) developed a fascination with the Near East and took pains to represent the sights and the people he encountered in the region in an honest and positive light.

English artist David Hockney is known as an important contributor to the pop art movement and is perhaps best recognised for his striking representation of Californian life and architecture in the 1960s.

In 1947 Klein and two of his friends decided to play a game in which they divided up the world between them. One young man decided to take the animal kingdom, and one the province of the plants. Klein opted for the mineral realm, gazing up to the sky and proclaiming, “the blue sky is my first artwork”.

The lily is one of the most potently symbolic flowers. Often associated with humility, devotion, purity and innocence, they are often presented at weddings and christenings, evoking chastity, femininity and fragility.

“I paint myself because I’m so often alone and because I am the subject I know best,” Frida Kahlo. Born and raised in Mexico to a German father and a Pacific Islander mother, Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) has become known for her self-portraiture and her unique painting style. Combining elements of traditional Mexican folk art, she studies every detail of her physique and transcends normalised structures of beauty.

The egg has always held particular symbolic significance, partly because it is a visual shorthand for new life and un-hatched potential. The egg brings hope and purity. It is a symbol of fertility and the circle of life. In some Asian cultures the egg is seen as a symbol of luck and wealth.

Contemporary Chinese surrealist painter and sculptor Zhang Xiaogang was born in Southern China in 1958. Often seen as Avant-Garde, Xiaogang’s artistic life has witnessed several important moments in China’s history, many of which are explored within his work. Perhaps the most defining brush with the political regime occurred during the early stages of Xiaogang’s life when he was brutally separated from his parents during the Cultural Revolution. They were sent to one of Mao’s notorious ‘study camps’, leaving him and his siblings behind.

In Matisse’s Music, created in 1910 to be hung in the staircase of a Moscow mansion, we see one of the artist’s last compositions of the human figure. It was created to be hung alongside a second, preceding painting titled Dance. The two works are colouristically linked, portraying red figures contrasted against a blue and green background.