Post Impressionism

Many Small Movements,

1880-1920
Post Impressionism
 Influence on Modern Art

Impressionism

Cézanne Gauguin Van Gogh

Nabis Fauvism Expressionism

Fauvism Early Abstractionists

Cubism

Futurism
 Post Impressionism
 As the nineteenth century closed out,
Impressionism had run its course as the “new
direction in art”. Renoir, Degas, and Monet
continued their work but were exploring new
aspects of their styles and had abandoned many
of the early goals of Impressionism. The artists
who based their work on the color theory and
techniques of Impressionism but painted
separately, developed their own unique styles,
are loosely grouped together and known as the
Post Impressionists.
 Post Impressionism…
 Two directions emerged among these
artists: Cezanne and Seurat sought
permanence of form and concentrated on
design; van Gogh and Gauguin
emphasized emotional and sensuous
expression. These directions are reflective
of the earlier nineteenth century
movements of Neoclassicism and
Romanticism, of design and
expressionism.
 Post Impressionism…

 The development of Impressionism had

freed artists from traditional painting
techniques and the Renaissance concepts
of space and form. Building on this new
freedom, Post Impressionism produced a
wide variety of style which succeeding
artists might expand. It set the stage for
the extreme range of individual expression
that characterizes the nineteenth century.
 Post Impressionism…
 Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the
British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to
describe the development of French art since
Manet. Post-Impressionists extended
Impressionism while rejecting its limitations:
they continued using vivid colours, thick
application of paint, distinctive brushstrokes and
real-life subject matter, but they were more
inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to
distort form for expressive effect, and to
use unnatural or arbitrary colour.
 Post Impressionism…
 The Post Impressionists were dissatisfied with the
triviality of subject matter and the loss of structure in
Impressionist paintings, though they did not agree on
the way forward. Georges Seurat and his followers
concerned themselves with Pointillism, the systematic
use of tiny dots of colour. Paul Cézanne set out to
restore a sense of order and structure to painting, to
"make of Impressionism something solid and durable,
like the art of the museums". He achieved this by
reducing objects to their basic shapes while retaining the
bright fresh colours of Impressionism.
 Post Impressionism…
 The Impressionist Camille Pissarro experimented with
Neo-Impressionist ideas between the mid 1880s and the
early 1890s. Discontented with what he referred to as
romantic Impressionism, he investigated Pointillism
which he called scientific Impressionism before returning
to a purer Impressionism in the last decade of his life.
Vincent van Gogh used colour and vibrant swirling brush
strokes to convey his feelings and his state of mind.
Although they often exhibited together, Post-
Impressionist artists were not in agreement concerning a
cohesive movement.
 Post Impressionism…
 Breaking free of the naturalism of Impressionism in the
late 1880s, a group of young painters sought
independent artistic styles for expressing emotions
rather than simply optical impressions, concentrating on
themes of deeper symbolism. Through the use of
simplified colors and definitive forms, their art was
characterized by a renewed aesthetic sense as well as
abstract tendencies. Among the nascent generation of
artists responding to Impressionism, Paul Gauguin
(1848–1903), Georges Seurat (1859–1891), Vincent van
Gogh (1853–1890), and the eldest of the group, Paul
Cézanne (1839–1906), followed diverse stylistic paths in
search of authentic intellectual and artistic
achievements. These artists, often working
independently, are today called Post-Impressionists.
Paul Cezanne
Portrait of Uncle Dominique, 1865-1867
 Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)
 Paul Cezanne was the lead painter of the late nineteenth
century in France and one of the most influential artists
in Western panting. Although he worked for a short
while in Paris, he spent most of his life in relative
seclusion in his hometown of Aix. His early work was
romantic, using Delacroix as his model, and he applied
his colors in juicy, thick passages. In the early 1870’s he
met Pissarro and adopted the Impressionists’ high keyed
palette, exhibiting with them at their first exhibition in
1874 and again at their third showing. All of
submissions to the Salon were rejected except one, in
1882. According the standards of his time, he was a
failure.
 Paul Cezanne
 Cézanne's work demonstrates a mastery of
design, colour, composition and draftsmanship.
His often repetitive, sensitive and exploratory
brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly
recognizable. He used planes of colour and small
brushstrokes that build up to form complex
fields, at once both a direct expression of the
sensations of the observing eye and an
abstraction from observed nature. The paintings
convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects,
a searching gaze and a dogged struggle to deal
with the complexity of human visual perception.
 Cézanne the artist
 In Paris, Cézanne met the Impressionist Camille
Pissarro. Initially the friendship formed in the
mid-1860s between Pissarro and Cézanne was
that of master and mentoree, with Pissarro
exerting a formative influence on the younger
artist. Over the course of the following decade
their landscape painting excursions together, in
Louveciennes and Pontoise, led to a
collaborative working relationship between
equals.
 Cézanne the artist
 His early work is often concerned with the figure
in the landscape and comprises many paintings
of groups of large, heavy figures in the
landscape, imaginatively painted. Later in his
career, he became more interested in working
from direct observation and gradually developed
a light, airy painting style that was to influence
the Impressionists enormously. Nevertheless, in
Cézanne's mature work we see the development
of a solidified, almost architectural style of
painting.
 Cézanne the artist
 Throughout his life he struggled to develop an
authentic observation of the seen world by the
most accurate method of representing it in paint
that he could find. To this end, he structurally
ordered whatever he perceived into simple
forms and colour planes. His statement "I want
to make of impressionism something solid and
lasting like the art in the museums", and his
contention that he was recreating Poussin "after
nature" underscored his desire to unite
observation of nature with the permanence of
classical composition.
 Paul Cézanne
‘House of the Hanged Man’ 1873
 Paul Cézanne
‘Landscape, Auvers’, 1873
 Pissarro
‘Gelée blanche’, 1873
 Paul Cézanne
‘The Bathers Resting’, 1875-76
 Paul Cézanne
‘The Bathers’, 1900-5
 Paul Cézanne
‘Still Life with Compotier’ 1879-1882
 Cézanne’s Still Lives
 He was fascinated by the relation of colour to modelling -
Brightly coloured, round solids (e.g. Apple) was ideal
 He was interested in achieving a balanced design, therefore he
stretched the bowl to the left to fill a void.
 As he wanted to study all the shapes on the table and their
relationship, he simply tilted it forward to make them come into
view.
 Everything (apart from the bowl & glass) has been reduced to its
essential form – either spherical or rectangular – enforcing a great
sense of weight and mass.
 Curves echo round the canvas.
 To achieve a sense of depth without sacrificing the brightness of
colours.
 To achieve an orderly arrangement without sacrificing the sense of
depth – all sacrifices EXCEPT for maintaining the conventional
‘correctness’ of outline.

 He was not out to distort nature; but he did not mind much if it
became distorted in some minor detail if it helped obtain the
desired effect.
 Paul Cézanne
‘Still Life with Plaster Cupid’ c.1895
 Paul Cézanne
‘Table, Napkin, and Fruit’, 1895-1900
 Paul Cézanne
‘Apples and Oranges’, c. 1899
 Paul Cézanne
'Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from
Bellvue‘, c. 1882-1885
 Paul Cézanne
‘Mont Sainte-Victoire’, 1902-4
 Cézanne

 Cézanne realised that the

eye takes in a scene both
consecutively and
simultaneously – and in
his work, the single
perspective gives way to
a shifting view,
acknowledging that
perspective changes as
the eyes and head move.
 Cézanne

 Here, as with Cézanne’s

other landscapes, he
renders depth and space
with COLOUR, rather
than traditional forms of
linear perspective and
tonal modelling.
“Colour must reveal every
interval in depth.”
 Cézanne

 The image shows the

recession of cool
colours and advance
of warm colours (and
variations in
intensity).
 Cézanne

 The image has a

restricted colour
palette of pale
greens, earth colours
and a wide range of
blues.
 Cézanne

 Cézanne’s work stood

apart from the
‘Impressionists’, as he
was still concerned
with maintaining
form, rather than
purely focusing on the
effects of light.
 Cézanne

 Cézanne uses
‘directional’
brushstrokes, with the
different planes of the
landscape being
placed in parallel
lines; equal and
separate
brushstrokes.
 Cézanne

 He is painting from a
high viewpoint –
which tips the
landscape up,
flattening it closer to
the picture plane and
cuts down the sky
area.
 Georges Seurat
‘The Bathers, Asnières’, 1883-4
 ‘Student’s text book of Colour: or, Modern
Chromatics with Applications to Art &
Industry’, 1881 by Ogden Rood, American
Physicist

 ‘Principle of Harmony & Contrast of

Colours and their application to the Arts’,
1839 – by Michel-Eugène Cheureul
 George Seurat
‘Sunday Afternoon on the Island of
La Grande Jatte’, 1883-1886
 Georges Seurat
‘The Lighthouse at Honfleur’, 1886
 Paul Signac
‘Breakfast (The Dining Room)’
c. 1886/87
 Paul Signac
‘Portrait of Félix Fénéon’, 1890
George Seurat
‘Circus’, 1890-91
 Paul Signac
‘Red Buoy, Saint Tropez’, 1895
Paul Gauguin
 French Artist, born
Paris, 1848 into a
wealthy family
 Spent early childhood
in Peru with mother’s
family
 While working
as a
Stockbroker,
Gauguin’s
interest in Art
developed
into a passion
which was to
see him leave
his job and his
family.

Inspired by the Impressionists, most influentially

Camille Pissaro, Gauguin’s paintings of the late 70s
and early 80s are very much Impressionist in style.
He regularly exhibited his work with the
Impressionists between 1877 and 1886.
 In 1886,
Gauguin
first started
working in
Brittany
and the
style of his
painting
started to
change.
“Four Breton Women Dancing” shows an
increased flattening of forms and a lack of spatial
depth that shows the influence of Japanese prints.
The choice of peasant women as subject matter
also makes a stark contrast with the wealthy
boating parties of Monet and Renoir.
 Gauguin described his new
style as Synthetism, by
which he meant a style of art
in which the form (colour
planes and lines) is
synthesized with the major
idea or feeling of the subject.
Breaking away from the
Impressionist preoccupation
with the study of light effects
in nature, Gauguin sought to
develop a new decorative
style in art based on areas of
pure colour (e.g., without
shaded areas or modeling), a
few strong lines, and an
almost two-dimensional
arrangement of parts. Yellow Christ 1889
 In Vision After the Sermon (1888) Gauguin
attempts to combine in one setting two levels of
reality, the everyday world and the dream world. The
lower figures are reduced to areas of flat patterns,
without modeling or
perspective.
•The large colour
areas are intense
and without
shadows. The
design is so strong
that the two
realities fuse into
one visual
experience.
 Gauguin shared a
close and
tempestuous
friendship with
Vincent Van
Gogh. They were
equally devoted
to a life absorbed
in painting, and
the time they
worked together
in Arles in the Portrait of Vincent
late 1880s was painting Sunflowers,
highly productive 1888
for both artists.
 Gauguin’s and Van
Gogh’s All-night café ,
Arles, 1888
 Gauguin boasted of the “great rustic and superstitious
simplicity” of the figures in his paintings. He said
“Civilization makes you sick”. Gauguin saw in peasant
and “primitive” people an honesty and a connection
to spirituality which lent itself perfectly to his
particular brand of Symbolist painting.
Proud of his
Peruvian heritage,
Gauguin saw himself
as a modern day
“primitive”; he drew
heavily on non-
western art for
influence; and
famously moved to
live and work in
Tahiti.
 The Tahitian society was
a strange mingling of
paganism and
Christianity and many of
Gauguin’s paintings
displayed the fusing of
cultures both in their
subject matter and in his
use of modern western
art ideas and ancient
imagery. For example,
his Ia Orana Maria
(1891) has the
Madonna and Child as
Tahitians, attended by
Buddhist angels derived
from an ancient Buddhist
temple frieze, so
combining Christian,
Buddhist and Oceanic
 In many ways,
Gauguin’s paintings
became less “primitive”
in the South Seas. His
colour palette remained
unnaturalistic but
became more
harmonious and
sophisticated. He
brought on his travels a
stock of photographs
and reproductions, from
ancient Egyptian and
Greek sculpture
alongside examples
from European painting,
and his later work
shows the breadth of
these references.
Spirit of the Dead Watching (1892) depicts Gauguin’s
teenage lover, struggling to sleep for fear of Tupapau (the
Spirit of the dead) lurking in the shadows. Gauguin’s version
of Manet’s Olympia, makes use of a number of symbolist
devices, from unnaturalistic colour to the presence of a
supernatural being.

•Gauguin wrote
that the purple of
the background
was used to create
a mood of “terror”
and the yellow cloth
was designed to be
“unexpected”. The
real and the
imagined coexist,
resulting in a highly
emotionally
charged image.
 Paul Gauguin
‘La Bergère bretonne’, 1886
 Paul Gauguin
‘Le Christ jaune (The Yellow Christ)’
1889
 Paul Gauguin
‘Harvest: Le Pouldu’, 1890
 Paul Gauguin
‘Portrait of Van Gogh painting’,
1888
 Paul Gauguin
‘Self Portrait: Les Misérables’, 1888
 Paul Gauguin
‘Spirit of the Dead Watching’, 1892
 Paul Gauguin
‘Portrait of Van Gogh painting’,
1888
 Paul Gauguin
‘Breton Peasant Women’, 1894
 Paul Gauguin
‘Where do we come from? What
are we? Where are we going?’
1897
“[Gauguin said] How do you
see these trees? They are
yellow. Well then, put down
yellow. And that shadow
blue. Render it with pure
ultramarine. Those red
leaves? Use vermilion”
 There are Artists working in the Post-Impressionist
period who stand alone from any school or group. The
most famous of these is the Dutchman, Vincent Van
Gogh who from 1880 (aged 27) to his suicide a
decade later devoted his life to Art with a religious
zeal, creating over 800 paintings.

The Sewer,
1888
 Van Gogh’s mature work is typified by rich surfaces of
thickly applied paint, with the patterns of the
brushstroke clearly emphasised and a use of bold
often unnaturalistic colours. His paintings are charged
with energy and an emotional intensity that creates a
stark contrast with the work of the Impressionists.

Starry
Night, 1889
 Vincent Van Gogh
‘The Bridge in the Rain (After
Hiroshige)’, 1887
Vincent Van Gogh
‘Sunflowers’, 1888
 Vincent Van Gogh
‘The Bridge in the Rain (After
Hiroshige)’, 1887
 Vincent van Gogh
‘Vincent’s Chair with his Pipe’,
1888-9
 Vincent Van Gogh
‘Room at Arles’, 1889
Vincent Van Gogh
‘Self Portrait’, 1889
 Vincent van Gogh
‘A Corner of the Garden of St Paul's
Hospital at St Rémy’, 1889
 Vincent van Gogh
‘A Cornfield with Cypresses’, 1889
 Vincent Van Gogh
‘Portrait of Dr Gachet’, 1890
 Vincent van Gogh
‘Farms near Auvers’, 1890
 Vincent van Gogh
‘Wheatfield with Crows’, 1890
 Wheatfield with Crows is one of Van Gogh’s
most famous paintings and probably the one
most subject to speculation. It was executed
in July 1890, in the last weeks of Van Gogh’s
life. Many have claimed it was his last work,
seeing the dramatic, cloudy sky filled with
crows and the cut-off path as obvious
portents of his coming end. However, since
no letters are known from the period
immediately preceding his death, we can only
guess what his final work might really have
been.
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
‘Divan Japonaise’, 1893
 Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
‘Jane Avril au Jardin de Paris’, 1893