The History of Post-Impressionism Art
Born of frustration, Post-Impressionism is a paradox; much like a child enamored with some of the qualities of its parents, yet disdainful of others, the movement borrowed heavily from its predecessor, yet yearned for a better way. Some of the most highly regarded painters of the time adopted this approach, leading to the more modernistic art of the 20th century.
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History
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The history of Post-Impressionism art encompasses the time period from roughly 1885 to 1905. The format developed as a result of artists from the period expressing dissatisfaction with the rules of painting that formed the basis of the Impressionist period. Originating in France, it stressed more expression, specifically in the context of volume and picture structure. The description of the movement (Post-Impressionism) was coined in 1910 by art critic Roger Frye to describe artists who had been influenced by Impressionism, but presented work of a distinctly different vein.
Significance
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Beginning in approximately 1860, the Impressionist period focused on color, shape and line structure to showcase movement and light, using colors drawn from a mixture of the three primary colors of red, blue and yellow. White played a strong role in the color scheme, but Impressionist artists distinctly avoided black and brown hues and elected to form their visuals with many small dabs of paint. Dissatisfied with this approach, Post-Impressionist artists believed the Impressionist works were too vague, lacking visual impact and structure.
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Artists
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According to World Wide Art Resources, Post-Impressionism describes "the work of painters such as Paul Cezanne, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, among others." These artists strove to express more than just visual significance. They also hoped to highlight the emotions and intellect of the subjects portrayed in paint. This desire led one artist to develop a technique that would come to be known as "pointillism."
Pointillism
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Pointillism was the brainchild of one of the first significant artists to move away from Impressionism, Georges Seurat. "Seurat created a technique that involved painting many thousands of tiny colored dots on his canvas. When his paintings are viewed from the very close up, all that can be seen are clusters of dots of contrasting colors," writes Jane Bingham in her book "Post Impressionism." But when viewed from a distance, the dots form a scene. This approach required precise planning, a concept not embraced in Impressionism. Seurat's peers began to employ this concept in their work, leading to mass adoption of the philosophy that would define the Post-Impressionist era.
Effects
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Post-Impressionist artists often exhibited together, but tended to work alone. "Cézanne painted in isolation at Aix-en-Provence in southern France; his solitude was matched by that of Paul Gauguin, who in 1891 took up residence in Tahiti, and of van Gogh, who painted in the countryside at Arles," according to the Art Industri Group of the United Kingdom, an artist resource website. "Both Gauguin and van Gogh rejected the indifferent objectivity of Impressionism in favor of a more personal, spiritual expression." Moving away from the naturalistic approach of Impressionism, modern movements of the early 20th century like Cubism were drastically influenced by Post-Impressionism.
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