POST IMPRESSIONISM

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat

OPTICAL MIXTURE ( a scientific theory about complementary colors that when juxtaposed and mixed by the eye result in greater luminosity)

NEO-IMPRESSIONISM

The subject is similar to what impressionists painted, but the brushwork and finesse are what make it different.

POINTILLISM (a term coined by French art critic and friend of Seurat's Felix Feneon to describe Georges Seurat's method of painting, exemplified by his painting La Grande Jatte. It consists of putting tiny touches of "points" of pure color on the surface next to one another so that when the viewer stands at a proper distance from the work, the eye will "mix" the colors optically.)

Seurat studied color theory and chemistry and did many preeliminary studies for this painting.

Strong vertical lines and horizontal elements create order and stability. Repetition (colors, umbrellas, hats)

People are not individualized, no interaction between them

Many artists followed Seurat's style

The Basket of Apples, Paul Cezanne

MULTI-PERSPECTIVE (refers to the technique of portraying an object from many views at once. Used by Cezanne to show how we really experience 3-dimensional form as opposed to the 1-point perspective of traditional art)

Emphasis on two-dimensionality of the painting and geometric shapes

Thick, broad brushstrokes

Working against the academic traditions

Cezanne was rejected by most critics, they really didn't like his work

Still Life with Plate of Cherries, Cezanne

La Montagne St. Victoire, Cezanne

Landscape

MULTI-PERSPECTIVE

Color passage (colors bleed into one another)

"Patchy" paint application

Breton Girls Dancing, Pont-Aven, Paul Gauguin

Gauguin studied with Pissarro and Degas and exhibited his work with the impressionists

Search for inner-experiences in his work

Painted what was before the industrialization, moves into more rural areas

Simplified compositions with broad areas of color. Dark outlines for figures. Influenced by the look of stained-glass windows.

The Vision After the Sermon, Gauguin

Tree trunk splits the scene in two, separating what's real and what's imaginary

The super bright red suggests it's not reality

Dark outlines of figures

Includes a self-portrait

No machines or industrial elements

La Orana Maria (Hail Mary), Gauguin

Gauguin moved to Tahiti (French colony)

He displayed a more primitive picture of Tahiti than it really was

Vibrant colors

Interest in dreams, imagination

The Spirit of the Dead Keeps Watch, Gauguin

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Gauguin

"The painting is to be read from right to left: from the sleeping infant—where we come from—to the standing figure in the middle—what we are—and ending at the left with the crouching old woman—where we are going"

"Gauguin completed Where are we going? at a feverish rate, allegedly within one month's time, and even claimed to de Monfried that he went into the mountains to attempt suicide after the work was finished. Gauguin—ever the master of self-promotion and highly conscious of his image as a vanguard artist—may or may not have actually poisoned himself with arsenic as he alleged, but this legend was quite pointedly in line with the painting's themes of life, death, poetry, and symbolic meaning."

Collapse of space

Mix of symbolism (christian/nature/indonesian/peru)

Stained-glass like style

The Night Cafe, Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh was inspired by pointillism and very interested in neo-impressionism

He moved from Paris to a small town in France

Thick brushstrokes

Strong, intense, harsh colors

Broad areas of color

IMPASTO

High emotion

JAPONISME (slight bird's eye view)

The Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh painted this when he was in an asyllum after a mental breakdown

Very thick, expressive brushstrokes

A bit similar to Dutch tradition of 2/3rds of the composition being the sky

Halo-like effect around the lights

Energy in the universe; suggests the spiritual

Physicality of the canvas

At the Moulin Rouge, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a post-impressionist, but he had many symbollist elements in his work

Image feels off-center

Influenced by Ukiyo-e prints & Japonisme

Artificial colors

Le Cirque, Seurat

Pointillism