As the World Modernized, Symbolist Painters Turned to the Occult

In the closing decades of the 19th century, forces that included secularization, urbanization, industrialization, nationalism, imperialism, and a fascination with the East reshaped daily life and unsettled established religion. Symbolist artists responded in kind, reviving and reworking alternative and occult spiritual traditions within their work.

With reporting from The Collector.