Symbolists did not favor genre paintings much, since the everyday life scenes provide little material to reveal the philosophical and aesthetic message of the style. Symbolists viewed the visible reality as a screen that hides the real, transcendent spiritual reality, which is irrational and beyond the reach of human reasoning.

Unlike the irrational reality of surrealists, symbolists’ higher reality can and should be discovered and perceived by man using his heart and intuition rather than his mind. This reality shows itself through symbols that you may notice and decipher relying solely on you inner voice. Symbols surround us and give us the key to decipher the visual world and unveil the mystery of the universe. Scenes of everyday life that are usually the subject of genre paintings do not have the potential to reveal this message – they are more resorted to by realists and impressionists. So, besides being a second choice, what are the peculiarities of genre paintings in symbolism? First, they are not at all portraying everyday scenes. Each artistic device is aimed at leading you to the mystery to be solved. The colours are faded and subdued, and are vastly symbolic – red may stand for passion, and green may symbolize envy. The draughtsmanship is obscure and diffused, creating the feeling of enigma enveiling the figures and the objects. The characters are profoundly meaningful, and often it is impossible to tell the century or the country they come from, despite the likelihood of representation. This is one of the major peculiarities of symbolists. The scenes feel nothing like usual routine activities; they provide the astounding picture of the reality mixed with the fantasy, the most heavily stressed themes are destiny, fate, love and death. Each element of the composition has to be thoroughly analyzed as a symbol through which the higher spiritual energy is trickling into our world. Generally symbolist genre paintings induce a sense of anxiety, something unspoken, some elusive meaning and enigma that make us look differently at the world around and suggest the presence of the creator or the universal law that gave life to everything we love.