Post Impressionism And Post-Impressionism

One of the last topics we discussed in class turned out to be a form of art that probably interests me more than almost every other type of art that we have discussed this entire semester. That form of art is the impressionist style of painting. I really love all the different brush strokes that form different images for different people. I also enjoy much of the images that the impressionists painted, because they are usually very relaxed and mellow images that put you into a comfortable place. The post-impressionist period, especially very early post-impressionist, is even better I think. I think it’s better because it is just a little more refined and puts more emphasis on the figure and form of different objects. Since I enjoyed the post-impressionist’s

Post-impressionism and Pop Art resulted as an artistic reaction on both sides. Post-Impressionism groups diverse pictorial tendencies that arose in France surroundings to 1880-1905 like reaction to the impressionism. In the other hand pop art was an artistic reaction to abstract expressionism. It can seem surprising the fact that in so short space of time, as soon as a quarter of century, so many evolutions and involutions in the land of art have taken place, mainly considering that until second half of century XIX, the great

Impressionism is a movement in French painting, sometimes called optical realism because of its almost scientific interest in the actual visual experience and effect of light and movement on appearance of objects (Impressionism). Neoimpressionism was a late-19th century art movement led by Georges

While the painters after the Impressionism period were collectively called the “Post-Impressionists,” the label is quite reductive. Each artist had their own unique style, from Seurat’s pointillism to Signac’s mosaic-like divisionism, Cezanne, Émile Bernard, and others. These artists were all connected in that they were reacting to the aesthetics of Impressionism. Two of the more influential painters from this movement were Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who aimed to connect with viewers on a deeper level by access Nature’s mystery and meaning beyond its superficial, observable level. However, each artist’s approach to achieving this goal was different. In close examination of Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin) and Paul Gauguin’s Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables), one may clearly see the two artists’ contrasting styles on display.

Impressionism is a way of painting which depicts objects using strokes and dabs of primary unmixed colours in order to simulate reflections of light. This style of painting was completely different and new at the time and both Seurat and Monet used these methods to become pivotal impressionist artists in the early 1870s.

Post-impressionism was more methodical than impressionism. Many post-impressionist works were done in a studio instead of out in the environment. Because of this, it is clear that these pieces were more time-consuming and were individual visions of the

     Post Impressionism, as the name would suggest, is the art movement that directly followed Impressionism. One artist, who led the Post Impressionism movement, was French artist, Paul Cézanne. Much of his early work was pure Impressionism and, although he was introduced to the style and guided by Camille Pissarro, Cézanne's works showed a distinctive uniqueness. Cézanne broke away from Impressionism because of the lack of composition; he felt the desire to depict subjects in the third dimension as well as appearing flat. Cézanne did not agree with the Impressionistic trait of portraying the world through light, instead, he built up images by a generous use of colour.

The post-impressionist they used impressionism’s technique but they wanted to take style to whole new level, these group of artist adopted only technique from the impressionism and added their emotions to their painting and wanted to show their

In the early twentieth century Post-Impressionism was the avant-garde art movement in the world, with its central city Paris, France. Artists from different religious backgrounds, cultures, and societal hierarchies migrated to Paris to take their art in new directions. France was a city of tolerance during both Pre and Post WWI; therefore, it was a beacon for those who wanted to convey their emotions and ideas visually. Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, and Robert Delaunay came to Paris and sought to create art with a personal aesthetic and to capture the essence of the modern era.

According to, David W. Galenson and Bruce A. Weinberg, in their article, Creating Modern Art: The Changing Careers of Painters in France from Impressionism to Cubism, the goal of the Post-Impressionism artists were to symbolize, rather than describe nature. Therefore, this in turn, allowed them to use more innovating techniques and to express their emotions; Gauguin and van Gogh were particularly zealous about using their emotional state to convey the content of their paintings. A quote taken directly from Galenson’s and Weinberg’s article, perfectly describes this attitude of emotion, rather than observation as the key artistic foundation of Post-Impressionism:

Impressionism is an art movement initiated in France (Paris) in 19th century. The name of this art movement was taken from a French artist’s name called Claude Monet, who painted his artwork (impression, sunrise). Impressionism art movement combined a group of prominent French artists, who their exhibitions became more important through 1870 – 1880s, despite the opposition from the classical art community in France. Claude Monet’s painting was provoked by the Critic Louis Leroy.

This group included Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro,Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley and Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec whom all worked together, influenced each other, and exhibited together and independently. A major fact that tied the group together was that they were exhilarated by contemporary developments in the color theory which helped their search for a more exact analysis of the effects of color and light in nature. They did not believe the shadows of objects were made up from its color with some brown or black added like it portrays. Instead they believed in greater depth that the shadow of an object was broken up with dashes of its complementary color, which is found to be very interesting. Impressionism is based on modernity, meaning faster pace and various improvements in the quality of daily life (Gersh-Nesic, n.d.). The key characteristics of Impressionism were light and its reflection, quickly painted surfaces, dots, dashes, separation of colors and letting the eye's perception mix them, commas and other short brushstrokes. These artists are known to jot down things faster and were called impressionists and their paintings eventually became known as Impressionism. The word "impressionist" in 1874 typically meant no skill but the group did not give up on the art they believed in, although they were rejected by academic institutions such as the French academy of fine arts and the Salon. By then end of the impressionist period artist no longer listened to the strict rules and did not care about the opinion of the salon, they were free to paint how they wanted and began to pursue their own ideas. This led to a growing revolution in art and is looked upon by many artists

“Most artists that was Post-Impressionists didn’t think of themselves as Post-Impressionists. The name was given to them by an English artist and critic Roger Fry in 1910.” (Bolton 4) Some examples of Post Impressionist artists are Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Cezanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Camille Pissarro.

The rest of the Impressionist soon adopted their, now, particular style. They typically forgot about chiaroscuro, and usually paid no attention to composition. Moreover, they adopted Monet’s quick sketchlike technique, where the final painting looked unfinished. Their goal was to capture the “constantly changing aspects of reality”. The impressionist style shared the desire to truthfully capture “tone and colour and the play of light” from the point of view of the observer. To really achieve this, quick, loose, and rough brushstrokes where often necessary. The new approach to painting mentioned above, came as a shock to the Parisian public, for they were so used to the Salon’s presentation of “only the smoothest of paint surfaces… the delicate, mother-of pearl transition of values”, that they considered the Impressionist paintings as “a fall into the abyss of deepest ignorance”, and a disgrace to traditional painting. In fact, art critic of the time, Ballu, wrote in the Chronique des Arts et de la

Post-Impressionism is generally considered as having begun at sometime around 1880 and continuing even until now (as technically all forms/movements of art do). Perhaps the most easily recognizable post-impressionist art piece would be Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, crafted by the eccentric artist in 1889.