Symbolism

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement

of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal

An Artistic and Literary Stream

that originated in France and spread throughout Europe at the end of the 19th century. characterized, in opposition to realism and naturalism, by the tendency not to faithfully represent the outer world but rather to create the world of the fantastic suggestion of dreams by means of symbolic allusions.

Symbolism can take different forms

Generally, it is an object representing another, to give an entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more significant. Sometimes, however, an action, an event or a word spoken by someone may have a symbolic value. For instance, “smile” is a symbol of friendship. Similarly, the action of someone smiling at you may stand as a symbol of the feeling of affection which that person has for you.

Symbols do shift their meanings

depending on the context they are used in. “A chain,” for example, may stand for “union” as well as “imprisonment”. Thus, symbolic meaning of an object or an action is understood by when, where, and how it is used. It also depends on who reads the work.
Common Examples of Symbolism in Everyday Life

In our daily life

We can easily identify objects that can be taken as examples of symbolism, such as the following:

1. The dove is a symbol of peace.
2. A red rose, or the color red, stands for love or romance,
3. Black is a symbol that represents evil or death.
4. A ladder may stand as a symbol for a connection between heaven and earth.
5. A broken mirror may symbolize separation.

An example of 19th century Sculptural Symbolism.

Paraphrasing Frédéric  Bartholdi "a monument should be as large as the idea".