symbolist

1. not comparableartOf or pertaining to the Symbolist movement in late 19th-century and early 20th-century European arts and literature

   The general picture that has emerged is one of Cubism bubbling up out of a thick Parisian stew of symbolist poetry, Cézanne, cafe society, African masks, absinthe and a fascination with all things mechanical and modern, mostly airplanes and automatons.

   2007 April 15, Randy Kennedy, “When Picasso and Braque Went to the Movies”, in New York Times

plural symbolists

1. One who employs symbols.
2. artA symbolist poet or artist.

   1 more example

   The symbolists had not all an explicit philosophy; but they were all aware of potencies in the world or in themselves which language cannot articulately express, and which are yet more vitally real than the 'facts' which we can grasp and handle, and the 'respectable' people whom we can measure and reckon with.

   1920, C.H. Herford, “Recent tendencies in European poetry”, in Francis Sydney Marvin, editor, Recent Developments in European Thought

3. artificial intelligenceA proponent of symbolic artificial intelligence.

   At the helm of the symbolists was [Frank] Rosenblatt’s nemesis, MIT professor Marvin Minsky.

   2025, Karen Hao, Empire of AI, New York City: Penguin Press, →ISBN