The poet Jean Moreas first gave title to the movement in 1886,with his Symbolist Manifesto. He rejected the doctrines of Naturalism by novelist Emile Zola, and in his manifesto he singled out three poets as leading figures in the movement: Baudelaire, Mallarme, and Valery. Through their writings these poets supported and contributed to the Symbolist painter's success. Of the visual artists three stand out as the forerunners of Symbolism: Gustave Moreau, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, and Odilon Redon. Puvis is known to be a precursor to the Symbolist movement, and although he never identified himself as a symbolist, and remained an independent artist, he was a great influence to the next generation of painters involved in the movement. He was quoted as saying, "I wish to be not Nature, but parallel to Nature."

Moreau and Redon were discovered by another crucial literary figure, Huysmans. He was another advocate of imagination and fantasy, and his book Against Nature published in 1884, he brings together the shared ideas between literary and visual artists. Moreau along with another artist Bresdin whose work as a printmaker would have a great influence upon Redon, stood out against the immersion of Naturalism in France during the 1860's and 1870's (the 1870's was the great decade of Impressionism).