POST-IMPRESSIONISM



POST-IMPRESSIONISM

I. BACKGROUND

A. Meaning of the movement

1. Not a united, easily defined movement

2. Each Post-Impressionist worked in a different manner

3. Grouped together because they worked after the Impressionists (1870s – 1880s)

B. More than Impressionism

1. Impressionism based on capturing a moment in time

• Used short-choppy brushstrokes in order to work quickly

• Interested in the momentary effects of light on color (once light changes, the moment is lost and the colors will be different)

• Paintings often have cropped edges (people will be cut-off at the sides) – adds to the momentary feeling of the painting

2. Post-Impressionists were influenced by Impressionism but believed it had its shortcomings

• Impressionists painted only what they saw – limited to reproducing nature – WHAT ABOUT PAINTING WHAT IS IN THE ARTIST’S MIND?

• Post-Impressionists influenced by Japanese woodblock prints like Impressionists (Great Wave off Kanagawa)

• Impressionists used short choppy brushstrokes, looks somewhat realistic from a distance, but close-up, the paintings lack solid lines and the colors dematerialize into the brushstrokes

3. Post-Impressionists wanted painting to be more

• Restore the formal qualities of art – color and line

• Paintings will be flatter looking (less chiaroscuro) and have harder outlines

• Objects and figures will have more solid shapes rather than dematerializing as in Impressionist paintings

II. KEY POST-IMPRESSIONISTS

A. Henri Toulouse Lautrec

1. Nicknamed “mini-Degas” – many similarities (horse racing, nightclub scenes)

2. Influenced by Japanese woodblock prints – cropped edges, informal moments, flat qualities, spatial diagonals and asymmetrical compositions

3. Deformed – broken legs as boy – atrophied legs, 5 foot tall – normal upper body, stubby legs, big head

4. Alcohol, drugs, and prostitutes: the demimonde

5. Rejected aristocratic background (Counts of Toulouse) to indulge in Paris nightlife in Montmartre : Self-exile from high-society

6. Paintings usually show nightclub scenes

• Faces green in appearance – effects of gas-lit interiors

• Faces appear as masks – commentary on people he met

7. Pioneer of poster art

• Elevated poster art to an acceptable art form – placed outdoors to advertise events

B. Georges Seurat

1. Exhibited in latter Impressionist shows but not recognized as a part of the movement

2. Scientific approach to painting based on COLOR THEORY

• 19th century research into the way the human eye perceives color

• French chemist Michel-Eugene Chevreul – major discoveries in color theory

• Theories regarding complementary colors – complementary colors can be found by taking one of the primary colors and mixing the two other primary colors to get the compliment of the first primary color e.g. The complementary color of red is green, the complement of blue is orange, and the complement of yellow is purple

• Complementary colors can be juxtaposed and will be mixed in the viewer’s eyes with greater luminosity

3. Seurat used the technique known as DIVISIONISM, also known as POINTILLISM.

• Didn’t mix many of the colors on his palette, applied pure colors to the canvas

• Viewer’s eye would do the mixing – OPTICAL MIXING

4. A Sunday on the Grande Jatte

• Seurat’s most famous painting

• Middle-class Parisian life – the Grand Jatte was an island in the Seine River – middle-class Parisians would go to the island on Sundays for leisure (swimming, boating, fishing, walking)

• Uses divisionism (pointillism)

• Seurat painted a frame around the painting to demonstrate color theory further – designed the frame so that in any one section, it contains the complimentary colors of the adjacent part of the painting e.g. The part of the frame by the blue sky contains more orange

C. Paul Gauguin

1. Interested in painting subjects that were BEYOND middle-class Parisian life – raw, exotic, primitive

2. At age 35, left behind a job as a stock-broker, a wife and five children

3. Traveled to Brittany (northwestern France), Arles (rural area in southern France – spent time there with Van Gogh), and the South Pacific (Tahiti and Marquesas Islands, where he died and is buried)

4. Bold colors, flat planes of color, more solid shapes delineated by line

5. Painted his own inner vision – his interpretation of what he saw – not copying nature like the Impressionists

6. The Vision after the Sermon

• Story from Old Testament of the Bible

• Painted while visiting Brittany – simple, peasant women

• Their vision after the sermon by the pastor

• Real world on the left – the Breton women praying and visualizing the sermon, a stray cow

• Visionary world on the right– separated by a flat-looking tree – Jacob is wrestling the angel

• Bold use of red – represents struggle

7. Many paintings of Tahitian women – Gauguin had more than one Tahitian mate while he traveled the South Pacific

8. Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

• Intended as a culminating work – just found out one of his daughters died

• Cycle of life from childhood to old age read from right to left

• Sleeping baby – first stage of life

• Two figures in purple discuss their destiny

• Crouching figure raises arms in astonishment

• Figure in center picking fruit – symbolizes the pleasures of life

• Idol with upraised arms – inevitability of death

• Old woman – accepts and resigned to her fate

D. Vincent Van Gogh

1. Dutch artist, father was a minister, Van Gogh trained as an art dealer and worked as a missionary before turning full-time artists

2. Influenced by 17th century Dutch painting, French painters of everyday people (Chardin and Millet)

3. Darker earlier style similar to Realist painting – Potato Eaters

4. More colorful, expressive style – color expresses his feelings ex. Yellow – a very happy color for Van Gogh

5. Famous for his paintings of Sunflowers and Cypresses – expressive use of color and brushstrokes – flowing brushstrokes express his feelings

6. Copied the real world but presented his own unique vision of the real world

7. Used thick layering of paint – IMPASTO

8. Moved to Arles (southern France) wanted to start artist colony – Gauguin joined him for awhile – had a major argument and Gaugin left

9. Van Gogh – manic depressive, breakdown after departure of Gauguin, cuts off part of his ear

10. Spends time in mental institution – still paints

11. Discharged into the care of a doctor (also an artist) and looked over by his brother Theo

12. Van Gogh commits suicide – self-inflicted gunshot wound (only sold one painting during lifetime)

13. The Night Café

• Painted in Arles, the Night Café is not a pleasant place – drunkards, tramps, and prostitutes

• Alien reds and greens to create a clash and convey feeling of human alienation

• Steep diagonal line – picture coming out at you – you don’t feel comfortable

• Strange man looking at you the viewer

• Influenced by Japanese woodblock prints – steep diagonals and flatness are similar to Ukiyo-e prints

14. Starry Night

• Painted while in the mental institution

• Not a realistic view of a starry night from his window – his unique vision

• Stars – Van Gogh believed that after you died you went to the stars - a pleasant place

• Cypresses – swirling brushstrokes, very tall – believed to be conduits to the afterlife – transported you to stars – spiritual quality

• Blues – cooler more depressed feeling Yellows – stars and surrounding air – happiness

• Church steeple – feelings about organized religion – background in ministry

E. Paul Cezanne

1. Background

• Exhibited with the Impressionists earlier in his career

• Enjoyed painting outdoors – landscapes – influence of Impressionists

• Developed his own pictorial language – Father of Modern Art

• Stronger sense of pictorial construction than Impressionists – solid shapes – wanted to create an art that was “solid and durable”

2. Key features of Cezanne’s work

• Use of COLOR PATCHES – his color patches convey a sense of depth

• Interest in using the underlying GEOMETRIC SHAPES that can be seen in nature – “See in nature the cylinder, the sphere, and the cone.”

• MULTIPLE VIEW POINTS of an object – Cezanne often shifts his point of view in his painting so that you see objects from a variety of angles – Makes the painting look less realistic but Cezanne wanted to show viewers that these were solid and real objects – not trying to create an illusion

3. Mont-Sainte-Victoire

• Here’s what Mont Sainte-Victoire looks like

• Mont Sainte-Victoire as painted by Cezanne (He painted many versions of this)

• Would you recognize Mont Sainte-Victoire?

• Can you see the color patches?

• How does Cezanne achieve depth in the painting?

• He uses the visual phenomenon whereby WARM colors (reds and yellows) appear to come toward us while COLD colors (blues and greens) seem to recede.

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