Antoine WIERTZ (1806-1865)

Around 1890, in a reaction against impressionism and the creeping materialism of the industrial revolution, a new pictorial language began to emerge across Europe, symbolism. Not content with reproducing the real world, the symbolists broke away from narrative and landscape art and its canons, and sought to connect with their viewers’ sensitivity through shapes and colours. Prices for their work have risen steadily in the past 10 years (+116% between 1992 and June 2003), but the diverse personalities and nationalities making up the symbolism movement is reflected in a wide variation in prices.