How did the subject matter of symbolist art diverge radically from realism?

Unlike the realists who wanted to present the world as real as possible, such as describing everything thoroughly and in third person in writing or painting real things such as apples, symbolists used a lot of allusions and a lot of implicit meaning in presenting what they wanted. The symbols would always indicate something else and not what they were denotatively presenting.

C. she wanted to answer sexist rumors about her paintings.