Allegorical Art

Allegorical Art

Allegorical art is similar to esoteric art in that it also contains a lot of hidden meaning or allegory. I think most of my art is really allegorical art, because even in my more ‘secular’ works, I like to include some cryptic idiosyncrasies and symbolism.

Symbolism, and often surrealism, is a characteristic of allegorical art. The tradition of allegory in painting goes back to the beginning of art itself — when art was like magic. And to draw a thing, or create a symbol, of an ox, a woman or a god, was to bring it into being.

In allegorical paintings, people, animals, objects, places or events can have symbolic significance and portray an abstract idea or philosophy, a moral or a virtue, or celebrate an attribute or feeling such as learning, beauty,  love, wisdom, art itself, bravery, introspection, religious piety or even death.

Often, things such as Death, Spring, Heaven, God, War, Peace, the Muses, the Fates etc. can be be artistically portrayed as anthropomorphized beings. The gods and goddesses of Classical Mythology or the angels and demons of many religions have been popular subjects in art for centuries.

Another example of a popular theme in allegorical art is the Momento Mori or vanitas still-life painting. This genre reached its peak in 17th Century Dutch still lifes.

In allegory, there can be many layers of meaning. I am mostly inspired by the Old Masters in my paintings, particularly from the Renaissance and Baroque Periods.

These periods not only produced very beautiful paintings, architecture and music, but the art was intense and purposeful in containing many layers of meaning. Many of these inherent meanings would have been obvious to people of that period, but with our modern sensibilities, these connotations or the significance of these meanings have been lost.

The concept or philosophy of Divine Harmony — in aesthetics, in music, in mathematics and geometry; in the relationship with the planets and the higher realms of Heaven; in relationship with the soul and God, and the dynamic between the artist and the Muses of Inspiration — was paramount. 

A lot ideas for paintings come to me in dreams. Dreams are by their very essence allegorical. I like the combination of allegorical art and realism painting. It is not purely abstract, surreal or realistic, but a kind of meeting point between them all. I wrote more about Allegorical Realism Paintings here.

Astrology and Tarot also contains much symbolic allegory. I am greatly inspired by these ideas. The astrological signs themselves are representations and allegories of different aspects of life. They can have so many levels of specific and general meanings, which I won’t go into here. I’ll allow my art to speak for itself.

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