Synthetism

Synthetism is an art movement of the late 19th century, primarily associated with the artists of the Nabis group and Paul Gauguin. Its essence is the unification of elements of the real world, symbolism, and bright flat colors into a single composition. Artists sought to move away from simple imitation of nature, creating their own images based on a mixture of the observed and the imaginary.

The main features of Synthetism became the contouring of forms, decorativeness, and the use of saturated colors.

A curious fact: once Gauguin in Tahiti painted a picture combining motifs of local mythology, his own memories, and direct observation of nature — later he himself admitted that the resulting image was completely "synthetic" and existed only on his canvas.

The aesthetics of Synthetism had a great influence on the graphic and applied arts of the 20th century, and images born of this style are easily recognizable by the bold combination of the obvious and the imaginary.