Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic.
Théophile Gautier photographed by Nadar
Portrait of Théophile Gautier by Théodore Chassériau (Musée du Louvre)
Gautier with Ernestina Grisi and their daughters Estelle and Judith. Photograph taken around 1857.
Gustave Boulanger, Théophile Gautier and Marie Favart in Roman costumes, 1861, a study for Boulanger's painting Répétition du "Joueur de flûte" et de "La femme de Diomède" chez le prince Napoléon
Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realism.
Death and the Grave Digger (La Mort et le Fossoyeur) (c. 1895) by Carlos Schwabe is a visual compendium of symbolist motifs. The angel of Death, pristine snow, and the dramatic poses of the characters all express symbolist longings for transfiguration "anywhere, out of the world".
Henri Fantin-Latour, By the Table, 1872, depicting: Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Léon Valade, Ernest d'Hervilly and Camille Pelletan (seated); Pierre Elzéar, Emile Blémont, and Jean Aicard (standing)
Portrait of Charles Baudelaire (c. 1862), whose writing was a precursor of the symbolist style
Eugen Bracht, The Shore of Oblivion, 1889