Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism was primarily an art style that developed between 1886 and 1905, spanning

from the last Impressionist exhibitions to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a

reaction to the naturalistic visualization of light and color by the Impressionists. Post-

Impressionism's tradition of visualizing abstract qualities or symbolic content shaped the later

Les Nabis, Neo-Impressionism, Symbolism, Cloisonnism, the Pont-Aven School, and

Synthetism. Among the main artists of this genre were Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh.

Post-Impressionists rejected the limitations of Impressionism. Post-Impressionism is notable for

the use of vivid colors, impasto (thick application of paint) and the use of subjects from life.

Post-Impressionists tend to emphasize geometric forms, distort form for expressive effect, and

use unnatural or distorted colors. The Post-Impressionists were unhappy with the trivialization of

subject matter in Impressionism and the loss of method in painting by the Impressionists. Paul

Cézanne strove to restore order and feeling to painting, he reduced objects to their basic forms

while retaining the saturated colors of Impressionism. Vincent van Gogh often used vivid colors

and vivid brushstrokes to convey his feelings and his state of mind. Post-Impressionist artists

also did not agree on a unified style. Nevertheless, abstract composition prevails over naturalism

in terms of consistency and structural arrangement in the works of all these artists.

Symbolic and highly personal meaning was especially important to Post-Impressionists such as

Paul Gaugin and Vincent van Gogh. Rejecting the urge to depict the observed world, they

instead looked to their own memories and emotions to connect with the viewer. The aesthetic

approach of post-impressionists such as Paul Cézanne dominated the optical effects of order and

color. Instead of simply representing their surroundings, they relied on the interrelationship of

color and shape to describe the world around them.

Historians have grouped the various styles within Post-Impressionism into two general but

opposing tendencies – on the one hand was the structural, or geometric style that was the

forerunner of Cubism, on the other was the expressive, or non-geometric art that led to Abstract

Expressionism.

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in Groote-Zundert, North Brabant,

Netherlands. He was the first child of Theodorus van Gogh and his wife, Anna Cornelia

Carbentus. Van Gogh's mother was a religious woman. Van Gogh was a contemplative child as a

child. His early education began at home with his mother and a governess and in 1860 he was

sent to a village school. In 1864, he was admitted to a boarding school in Zevenbergen. In 1866,

his parents sent him to middle school in Tilburg. His interest in art began at an early age, his

mother encouraged him to draw as a child, and his early drawings are expressive, but do not

approach the intensity of his later work. Constant Cornelis Huysmans, who was a successful

artist in Paris, taught students in Tilburg. In 1868 he suddenly returned home from middle school

in Tilburg. In 1869, Van Gogh's uncle arranged for him a trip to the art dealers Goupil & C in

Hague. After completing his training in 1873, he was sent to work at Goupil's London branch. It

was a happy time for van Gogh; He was successful in his work. His father and uncle arranged for

him to be transferred to the Paris branch of Goupil in 1875 when he later became depressed. In

1876 he returned home for six months at Christmas and took a job in a bookshop in Dordrecht.

He immersed himself in Christianity, and gradually became pious and ascetic. To support his

religious beliefs and his desire to become a priest, in 1877 his family sent him to Amsterdam to

live with another uncle, Johannes Stricker, who was a respected theologian. Van Gogh prepared

for and failed the theology entrance exam at the University of Amsterdam and left his uncle's

house in 1878. In January 1879, he accepted a position as a missionary in Petit-Wasmes, a

working-class coal-mining area. 1879 He yielded to the pressure of his parents and returned

home. He remained there until March 1880, when, on the advice of Theo, he took up the practice

of art in earnest. He went to Brussels later in the year to follow Theo's recommendation to study

art with the Dutch artist Willem Roelfs, who urged him to attend the Académie Royale des

Beaux-Arts. In 1880 he entered the academy where he began to study anatomy and modeling

ideals.

His artistic career was very short, from 1880 to 1890. During the first four years of this period,

while acquiring technical skills, he confined himself almost entirely to drawing and watercolors.

First, he went to study drawing at the Brussels Academy. In 1881 he left his art education

unfinished and left for his home in Etenne and began to imitate nature. Van Gogh worked

rigorously and methodically but soon realized the difficulty of self-teaching and the need to seek

the guidance of more experienced artists. In late 1881 he moved to Hague to work with a Dutch

landscape painter, Anton Mauve. Van Gogh thus expanded his technical knowledge and began

experimenting with oil paints in the summer of 1882. In 1883 an urge to commune with nature

took him to Drenthe, an isolated part of the northern Netherlands. The artist spent three months

in another village in Brabant before returning home. He remained in Nguyen for most of 1884

and 1885, and his art became bolder and more specific during these years. He painted three types

of subjects—still life, landscape, and figure—all related to the daily lives of peasants, the

hardships they endured, and the countryside they cultivated. Many of his works contain

sociological criticism—eg, The Weavers and The Potato Eaters.

From studying Frans Hals he learned to depict the freshness of a visual impression, while the

works of Eugène Delacroix taught him that color itself can express something. Peter Paul

Rubens' discovery of the ability to convey mood in color combinations helped develop Van

Gogh's style. Simultaneously, Van Gogh studied Japanese prints and Impressionist paintings. All
this influenced him more than the academic principles taught in the academy. He moved to Paris

in 1886 with his brother Theo. There he opened his eyes to the latest developments in French

painting. At the same time, Theo introduced him to Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat and other

artists of the Impressionist group.

During this period van Gogh made changes to his paintings between 1886-1888 that resulted in

his personal artistic style and style of brushwork. His palette became more colorful, his vision

less traditional and his tonality lighter. By 1887 he was painting in pure color and using broken

brushwork that was sometimes pointillist. Finally, in early 1888, Van Gogh's Post-Impressionist

style became apparent, resulting in masterpieces such as self-portraits, as well as some

landscapes of the Parisian suburbs. In these works he tried to depict the external, visual aspect of

a figure or landscape, but did not suppress his own feelings about the subject, which were

expressed in contours and color effects. Deviating from the traditional techniques of painting, he

had worked so hard to master the new, and now he was releasing his individuality. He composed

art by squeezing tubes of oil paint directly onto the canvas, his style was spontaneous and

instinctive as he worked with great speed and intensity. He was determined to capture a mood.

Van Gogh knew that his approach to painting was individualistic.

In early 1889, again showing signs of mental instability, he was admitted to the Mansique

Hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence for treatment. Van Gogh stayed there for 12 months,

alternating between periods of depression, sobriety, and depression: The Starry Night, Garden of

the Asylum, Cypress, Olive Trees, Les Alpilles, Portrait of the Doctors are notable paintings of

this name.

Central to his work at this stage is the fear of losing touch with reality, as well as a certain

sadness. Confined to his room or garden for long periods and having no choice of subject, he

based his art on direct observation and he almost stopped working from memory. At Saint-Rémy
he stopped using the vivid, sun-bright colors of the previous summer and tried to make his

paintings more calm. He engaged himself more imaginatively by dramatizing his works. Created

a style based on dynamic form and strong use of line. His Saint-Rémy pictures are bolder and

more visionary than those of Arles.

In 1890 he moved to the village of Auvergne, returning to his paintings of cornfields, river

valleys, peasant cottages, churches and town halls that reflected his spiritual relief. A change in

his style followed: the natural forms of his figures became less distorted, and he adopted cool,

fresh tonality in the northern light. His brushwork became broader and more expressive and his

vision of nature more lyrical. Everything in these pictures seems moving, alive. This phase was

short-lived, however, and in despair at being able to overcome or cure his loneliness, Van Gogh

shot himself.

Van Gogh emphasized the integration of man and nature in his art, resulting in his style and

subject matter combining drama, fantasy, rhythm, and emotion that express more than the mere

form of the subject. Although the source of many of his life's tragedies, Van Gogh's mental

instability, his A frenzied enthusiasm for emotional visualization of his surroundings provided

him with this state of mind and the deep psychological reflection that appears in each painting.

Early in his career as an artist, Van Gogh painted with dark colors that were suitable for

depicting his subjects at the time, such as miners and farm workers. However, when he moved to

Paris in 1886 and was influenced by the works of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists, his

style underwent a major change. He began using a lighter color palette of reds, yellows, oranges,

greens and blues and experimented with the brush strokes of the Impressionists. Van Gogh also

tried the pointillist technique of the Neo-Impressionists. Van Gogh was also heavily influenced

by Japanese prints, and his resulting art featured bold outlines that he filled in with thick colors.

Her choice of colors varied with her mood.

In 1888 Van Gogh moved from Paris to Arles and lived with Ganga for a while. Ganga bought a

bunch of jute and both artists used it for their artwork, which resulted in them applying paint

thickly and using heavy brush strokes. Van Gogh began imitating painting techniques from

memory of Ganges during this time, making his paintings more interesting and less realistic. Van

Gogh's emerging style shows an emotional response to the subject through color and brushwork.

Instead of using color realistically, he used color deliberately to capture mood. At that time, no

other artist did this. The light and vibrant colors of Provence seem to resonate with the artist's

personal life.