Post-Impressionism

==Post-Impressionism Characteristics:==

• 1886-1905
• Instead of art being a window onto the world, it became a window into the artist’s mind using memories/emotions
• Symbolic & personal
• Focused on abstract form and pattern
• Combination of the colour and light of impressionism with the design and structure/composition of traditional painting.
• Sought to make an emotional experience through the use of:
    * Symbolism
    * Vibrant colour
    * Captivating forms
• An exaggerated form of impressionism
• Dabs of colour allow the viewer’s eye to blend them (diff people saw diff things)

^^Differences with Impressionism:^^

• Artists planned their canvases instead of going by an instantaneous glimpse
• Combination of Impressionism’s colour and light with traditional structure and composition

^^2 Directions of Impressionism:^^

• Cézanne & Seurat: Looked for the permanence of form and concentrated on design
• Van Gogh and Gaugin: Emphasized emotional and sensuous expression
    * Considered “spiritual” post-impressionists due to their depcition of emotion and shying away from Realism

^^Impact on 20th-Century Artists:^^

• Freed artists from traditional painting techniques and Renaissance concepts of space and form
• Produced a variety of styles
• Gave an extreme range of individual expression that characterizes art in the 20th century

%%Seurat:%%

• Created “marvellously light-filled pictures” based on impressionist techniques and scientific ones (photography + physics)
• Master of pointillism/divisionism
• Used vibrant colour + optical mixing + structured compositions
• Ex. Bathers at Asnières, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (rich people pointillism)

%%Van Gogh%%

• Used Impasto: thick globs of paint (vigorous strokes)
• Early work: Used very dark tones (depressed, suicidal), traditional technique
• After seeing Impressionism: Colour brightened, and brushstrokes became visible
    * Brilliant colour to immortalize his subjects & textured surface
    * He used CONTRAST to create a visual vibration that at first might seem shocking.
• Eventually committed suicide
• Ex. Café Terrace at Night, The Starry Night, Sunflowers

%%Toulouse-Lautrec:%%

• Broke both legs at 14, then became a painter.
    * Painted at elbow-height
• A favourite subject for his caricatures: dancers & circus performers
• Immerses his viewers into his art (ex. woman and table in At the Moulin Rouge draw the viewer into direct relationship with the scene).
• First artist to produce modern posters for commercial purposes such as cabarets’ advertisements
• Drew circus posters & oil pieces with the pretty woman
• Ex. At the Moulin Rouge, The Glutton, Japanese Couch

%%Gauguin:%%

• Very simplistic style (stark lines)
• Rejected the formlessness of Impressionism and realistic portrayal
• He wanted to return to a primitive form of art with simple forms and symbolism rendered in a decorative and stylized way
• Gauguin outlined his shapes and used many Egyptian poses
    * He flattened form into decorative shapes and combined brilliant colours to express his feelings
• Combines his Christianity with tropical lifestyle/Tahiti (ex. depicts Tahitian woman and her son like Mary and Christ)
• “Goofy art”
    * Ex. The Yellow Christ, Self Portrait with the Yellow Christ, Tahitian Women on the Beach, Parau Api

%%Cézanne:%%

• Liked:
    * Balance, thick paint, objects reduced to simple forms
• Did not want his paintings to imitate the realistic 3 dimensionalities of nature
• He felt free to move objects and adjust relationships of colour/form even it meant distortion
• He discarded the traditional aerial and linear perspective and painted foreground, middleground, background, and sky with the same intensity.
• Uses flat abstract planes of colour to manipulate dimensions/space
• Began painting still-life because nobody would sit for him (unless they are card-players that would sit for hours)
• Painted still-life and card players
• Ex. The Basket of Apples, The Card Players \n