Impressionism Post-Impressionism

Overview❖ In the last third of the 19th

century, French painting was the liveliest, most experimental, and most creative art force. Paris was the centre of activity and artists from around the world flocked there to work, study, and exchange ideas. Impressionism and its practitioners worked around the Seine River, grounded by Realism’s philosophy of painting, to paint outdoors to record firsthand nature’s colour and light.

Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street, Rainy Day

Camille Pisssarro, La Place du Theatre Francais

❖ The “new Realist” movement came about in the mid-1860s and throughout the 1870s to be the first complete artistic revolution since the Early Renaissance in the 15th century, and the first universal style to originate in France since the birth of Gothic in the 12th century by Abbot Suger.

❖ The new style was profoundly influenced by photography – in fact it may never have existed without it. Impressionists essentially set out to compete and beat photography by taking its benefits of composition, cropping, candid views, off hand glimpses, spontaneity, and exposing its weakness – it was monochromatic – black and white.

Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers

❖ Starting on the basis of Courbet’s solid Realism and the light effects of Corot, the Impressionist artists worked from start to finish out-of-doors, and became fascinated by the transformation light brought onto natural objects, surfaces, and atmospheric spaces. It soon became clear to them that colour is not a property of the object itself but of the moment of perception of light, and it changes constantly with the times of the day, movement of the sun, and the density of the atmosphere. Previous generations of artists compensated or re-adjusted colour in paintings in favour of what was known rather than what was seen.

Claude Monet, La Promenade

❖ The Impressionists were the first to render the full intensity of natural light and the glow of natural colours. It was light, perceived in a flash-too quick to permit the eye to focus on detail, judge contours, assess weights and densities - that the Impressionists tried to capture. Claude Monet, leader of the movement, called the goal instantaneity. It was not meant as in the flash snapshot of photography, but a total instantaneity of light, motion, temperature and especially colour.

Auguste Renoir, The Luncheon Boat Party

Edgar Degas, Blue Dancers

❖ The casual approach of Impressionism was not suited to artists who wished to emphasize form and structure or to convey strong emotions in their work. A whole generation (including some Impressionists) of artists soon broke the restraints of Impressionism, but remained indebted to them for opening their eyes to a new way of seeing the world.

❖ Cézanne led the way for a group of artists who have been characterized as the Post-Impressionists. His concern for form and design, his use of small blocks of colour formed the foundation for later design-oriented painters.

❖ Gauguin used colour to intensify emotional qualities in his work. Seurat approached the use and study of colour with scientific curiosity and intensity.

❖ Van Gogh expressed his internal turmoil with bold colour, texture, and bursts of energy.

❖ Toulouse-Lautrec echoed the flat patterns of Japanese art and translated them into French subject matter.

Paul Cezanne, Mont Ste. Victoire

Georges Seurat, Une Baignade, Anieres

Vincent Van Gogh, Wheat fields with crows

Toulouse-Lautrec, Dancer at theMoulin Rouge

Japanese Print

❖ Many other innovations developed in the world of art during the latter part of the 19th century, including Symbolism and Expressionism. Artists and now the public defied the authority of the Academy as a ruler and dictator of style and taste. A greater difference between styles had started to develop. Artists were becoming more and more individualistic and styles were beginning to evolve from one to the next more rapidly.

Paul Gauguin, Yellow Christ

Edvard Munch, The Scream

Toulouse-Lautrec, Dancer at theMoulin RougeToulouse-Lautrec, Dancer at theMoulin Rouge

Ollidon Redon, Ophelia

❖ The use of the name Impressionism to characterize the new style came from the first exhibition of the group and by is leader Claude Monet. The title came from his painting entitled Impression: Sunrise, 1872. The exhibition was greeted with great animosity, the like of which had never been experienced in Paris. Every tradition of European painting seemed to have been thrown aside. Form and substance had vanished. The picture was a mere collection of coloured streaks and blobs on a light blue background.

IMPRESSIONISM

Claude Monet Impression: Sunrise, 1872

❖ Did not paint objects or form. He painted the colours he saw that made up the impression of the form or object.

❖ He used the colour theory of optical mixing in his paintings in which he would place dabs of one colour next to dabs of another and allow the eyes of the viewer blend the colours when viewed from a distance. The technique of using dabs of colour unmixed next to each other is called broken colour. These colour theories became the basis for all Impressionist artists.

Claude MONET: (1840-1926)

❖ As with all Impressionists, Monet began as a Realist painter – landscapes dominated his early work. In his early work from Argenteuil, Monet’s style is characterized by high-keyed colours rendered in flat patches of paint.

❖ Within several years his style was transformed from using flat brushstrokes to one that produced a shimmering effect in which the entire surface vibrated with colour and light. There were no definite contours or edges to anything.

Monet, Rouen Cathedral SeriesMonet realized that colours were constantly changing based on time of day, weather, season, and so on. He often painted the same subject from the same vantage point at different times of day. An example of this can be seen in his paintings (more than 30 canvasses had been done) of Rouen Cathedral, 1894. In these paintings the details of the structure are irrelevant. Only light and colour reflected from different surfaces are important.

❖ Before Monet, Edouard Manet seeded the germs of the new way of perception.

❖ Trips to Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria in the 1850’s brought him into contact with works of the Old Masters. He made careful copies of great works from these artists.

❖ He was particularly impressed by the optical art and brilliant brushwork of Velazquez after a visit to Spain in 1865, in whom he remained indebted by his influence.

❖ Other influences include Goya, and contemporaries Courbet and Daumier.

Edouard MANET: (1832-1883)

Manet, Olympia

Manet, Still life with fish

❖ At first Manet maintained a distance from the members of the Impressionist group. He never exhibited with them.

❖ What ties him to the Impressionists is his manner of painting – loose brushwork and patches of paint on the canvas, not the subject matter they represented were of importance.

❖ He wanted the viewer to look at his paintings not through them as if through a window out to a scene in space by means of illusion and perspective. This is of paramount significance to the development of art because it changes the purpose of picture making. During the Renaissance, the idea of a canvas being a window through which one looks upon a scene was essential. The artist was to create the illusion of space/depth. Manet transformed thinking to the idea that the canvas is an object to be looked at for its own sake as basically decoration of a space or room. Paintings should be enjoyed for their colour and arrangement and for the fact that they were paintings, not imitations of nature. It is in treating the canvas in this manner that changed art forever and would influence modern artists like Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, Kandinsky, De Kooning, Motherwell, and Hoffman among others.

❖ The flatness in his paintings is often accomplished by the use of broad flat elements in the background that negate the illusion of depth. This can be seen in his painting Gare Saint-Lazare, 1873, and The Waitress, 1878 in which he uses the bars of a fence or large areas of flat painted surfaces.

❖ The flat approach to his work is attributed to prints of Japanese woodcuts that were popular imports in France at the time.

❖ In his works the elimination of dark shadows, no chiaroscuro, or any roundness of form also creates flatness. The light source is not from one side as in many “Renaissance” type paintings. No black was added to create shadows.

❖ What ties Manet to the Impressionists is his use of the snapshot view, or cropping, which gives his work its peculiar view. Also, the fact that he often painted onsite is a trait of the Impressionists way of painting. And finally his subject matter - glimpses of cafés and contemporary Parisian life - links him to the other Impressionists artists.

Manet, Dejeuner sur l’herbe

❖ An Impressionist from the beginning of the movement.

❖ He was the most careful and craftsmanly of them all by capturing the feeling or impression of a place through colour and mood.

❖ Often bought works from his Impressionist friends to keep them from starving and also let many of his contemporaries live on his property in the country.

❖ His technical prowess would be influential to the development of Cézanne’s development.

❖ His glimpses of street scenes are often from second or third story windows from which he captures the hustle and bustle of city life through shimmering light, and colour. Everything is rendered in tiny spots of colour.

Camille PISSARRO: (1830-1903)

❖ Described as the most sensuous and effervescent of the Impressionists, because he preferred to paint women, nude figures and scenes in which light passes through trees onto happy scenes beneath.

❖ Characteristically of Impressionist painting Renoir does not use black at all. Blue is used in shadows.

❖ His Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, 1876 is the very essence of Impressionism – the enjoyment of the moment of light and air. Flickering light filters through the trees and speckles people with sunshine as they dance through light and shadows.

❖ He never surpasses this work. In his second phase, he gave up the effects of light for solid carefully defined forms. Later in his third phase, he tried to unite his first two phases by combining the formal balance of traditional work with the shimmering effects of Impressionism. His fourth and final phase was characterized by an exaggeration of soft brushwork and intense colours. However, his subjects remained happy and sun-filled scenes.

Pierre Auguste RENOIR: (1841-1919)

Renoir, Moulin de la Galette

❖ There could be no more complete opposite to Renoir than Degas.

❖ Although he exhibited with the Impressionists, he did not share their interest in landscape.

❖ His approach to the Impressionist instantaneity concerned itself solely with people from a detached voyeuristic view an almost intellectual curiosity.

❖ His admiration for the Old Masters, especially in Neoclassical linear perfection, made him a master of line and drawing. He was taught by a pupil of Ingres. For this he was reluctant to approach Impressionism’s soft contours.

Edgar DEGAS: (1834-1917)

Degas, The Absinthe Drinker

Degas, Woman Bathing

❖ His peculiar cropped views show a kind of snap shot of a moment of action. His compositions are informal, often diagonal, from strange vantage points such as from the wings of a stage or balcony box, café table, or a bathroom keyhole. These aspects show the influence and his interest in photography.

❖ Like Monet, Degas like to work in series in which he would explore the same theme over a period of time – such as his ballet series, and Parisian city scenes.

❖ Degas liked to work with pastels because of their immediacy and freshness. He was the first artist to exhibit them as finished works instead of preliminary sketches for paintings.

❖ American born and trained in Philadelphia, she left for Paris in 1865.

❖ Her work is akin to that of Degas’.

❖ Although she adopted the Impressionist closed space (hers particularly close to that of Degas’), soft surface, and snapshot view; she never accepted the dematerialized objects and people. Like Degas, her forms were precise, superbly drawn, and solidly designed.

❖ She never copied Degas. She combined the informal subjects and compositions of the impressionists with her precision and definition of forms (American training influence).

❖ Mothers and children were her favorite subjects (suggested by Degas).

❖ In her Sleeping Baby, 1910, Cassatt used arms, legs and darker values to direct the viewer’s eyes to the tender touching of faces by the mother and child.

❖ She used line along legs and arms to strengthen the design and add solidity to figures.

❖ The loose pastel work and high-keyed colours are typical of Impressionist works.

Mary CASSAT: (1845-1926)

❖ During the 18th and 19th centuries, sculpture had lagged behind both painting and architecture as a medium of artistic expression.

❖ With exception to the small sculptures made by Daumier and Degas, very little sculpture of significance was done.

❖ During Impressionism’s peak, it had dissolved form through broken colour, leaving a monumental challenge for any sculptor who works with form.

❖ Rodin came to parallel the basic principles of Impressionism- immediacy, instantaneity, and accidentality – to combine in masterpieces of sculpture not seen since Michelangelo, Donatello and Bernini.

❖ He often worked in clay, plaster or wax because of their immediacy and left them seeming unfinished, yet complete.

Auguste RODIN: (1840-1917)

Rodin, Burghers of Calais

❖ The surfaces of his sculptures when finally cast in bronze shimmered with light – true to Impressionism.

❖ As with the Impressionists, his work was not popular with critics for its unfinished, unpolished and unrefined appearance.

❖ Among his greatest works are his The Thinker, 1879-1889, The Age of Bronze, 1876 and his Monument to Balzac, 1897-98.

The Thinker, 1879-1889

The Age of Bronze, 1876

Monument to Balzac, 1897-98.

Post-Impressionism

During the 1880s the Impressionist movement rapidly fell apart. The early goals of Impressionism were abandoned while new aspects of the Impressionistic style were explored. The different styles that emerged are grouped loosely under the general title of Post-impressionism. They had little in common except the techniques and colour theory from which they based their individual styles. Typically, as a reaction to the previous movement, Post-impressionist painters perceived Impressionism as having lacked lasting value as an art. Each Post-Impressionist artist created a sharply individual style, which could no longer be mistaken for that of any of his contemporaries or former associates, in subject matter, content, or technique. Among the variety of Post-Impressionist styles, one can distinguish two major directions. One, led by Cézanne and Seurat, sought a solid representation of form rather than the dissolved forms of Monet; the other, represented by Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, gave most importance to emotional or sensuous expression. Both directions began with colour. The former group’s aims, therefore would make them heirs of Neoclassicism’s structure, analytical approach to the subject matter, and scientific approach to colour, while the latter would make them heirs of Romanticism’s approach toward emotion, energy, vivid colour, and personal individual expression.

❖ The son of a wealthy banker, he never experienced any of the financial difficulties that Monet or Renoir faced during the formative years of Impressionism.

❖ His early works show he had interests in Romantics like Delacroix and Realists like Courbet. Later his work shows the influence of Manet.

❖ Not until 1870s did his palette become Impressionist in colour, viewpoint, and subject matter as a pupil of Pissarro

❖ Cézanne’s drive came from his desire to create a “new” style of painting. To achieve this he isolated himself from possible influences from other artists in Paris. His great achievements in painting date from the lonely periods he spent away from Paris in Aix-en-Provence.

❖ He deeply admired the works found in the Salon. All of his submissions were rejected except one in 1882. According to the standards of the day, he was considered a failure.

Paul CÉZANNE: (1839-1906)

❖ In his work Cézanne did not want his paintings to imitate the realistic three-dimensionality of nature. He wanted them to remain as flat canvases with paint on them.

❖ This freedom allowed him to move objects and adjust colour and form to produce the best design possible, even distorting things.

❖ Design of the painting was his ultimate concern.

❖ He creates a sense of perspective in his paintings by overlapping planes of colour.

❖ He had essentially taken the Renaissance idea of picture making and thrown it out the window the viewer looked through. He did not use aerial and linear perspective. He painted all areas with equal intensity-background, middle ground, and foreground.

❖ This led to compressing of space so that the canvas remained visually flat, allowing colour to indicate depth. It is this aspect in his painting that opened the door for modern abstract and non-objective painters, especially the Cubists who considered Cézanne the Father of modern art.

❖ Cézanne painted the mountain Mont Sainte Victoire, near his town on many occasions developing his technique and painting concepts. He built up the painting by applying flat planes of colour. The sky is treated, as is the foreground bringing it closer to the viewer. The flat patches of colour act as the unifying element in his painting. There are no people, animals or birds in his landscapes.

Mont Ste. Victoire, 1904.

❖ His systematic approach to painting in ensuring everything in the painting related to the canvas made for a long process – an approach opposed to that of Impressionism’s instantaneity. Still-life painting was second only to landscape painting. Fruit often spoiled before he finished a painting. His landscapes never indicate time of day or even season.

Still life with apples and peaches, 1905.

❖ The subject matter in his paintings was subordinate to its underlying design. Every brushstroke, colour change and line has a purpose in his paintings. The visual movement from object to object and the rhythm established with colour was more important than whether a table or pitcher of water is drawn in correct perspective. If distortion produced a better design, it was his privilege to do it. Bathers, 1906.

❖ While Cézanne took from Impressionism what he felt important to assist him in inventing a new style, Georges Seurat was working toward similar goals but with very different methods and results.

❖ From Impressionism, Seurat took colour and light. There is, however, no instantaneity in his scenes as was the case in Impressionism. There is permanence about his designs.

❖ Influences in his work are from photography, the scientific colour theory of Chevreul and the physics of colour and light.

❖ Seurat’s technique involves the placement of dots of colour next to each other for the viewer’s eye to mix – optical mixture. A similar technique is used in creating colour images on television and on computers.

Georges SEURAT: (1859-1891)

❖ His most famous painting is A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte, 1884-1886. Before its completion, he made forty preliminary studies. The scene is carefully designed. He used his characteristic pointillist technique in which each mark on the canvas is about the size of a pencil eraser. The effect is like that of a mosaic. The uniform surface sparkles with colour and light.

❖ The mathematical approach Seurat used in composing the picture’s design is based on the ones used by the Greeks.

A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte, 1884-1886.

Details - A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte, 1884-1886.

❖ Dwarfed because of childhood illness, was alienated by his noble family’s fashionable life, Toulouse-Lautrec went to Paris to paint scenes from cafés, theatres, cabarets, and bordello interiors.

❖ His portraits and caricatures were done with great skill, capturing the character of his subject with a quick, sketchy style.

❖ He captured the same feeling of spontaneity in is paintings although they took long periods of time to complete.

❖ The cropped scenes and odd views from cafés and cabarets are a definite influence from Degas’ Absinthe Drinker.

❖ Toulouse-Lautrec was the first artist to produce posters for commercial purposes.

❖ His early death at the age of 37 was brought on by alcoholism and venereal disease.

Henri de TOULOUSE-LAUTREC: (1864-1901)

At the Moulin Rouge, 1892.

Moulin Rouge, 1892.

❖ Under the strong influence from Pissarro, Gauguin rapidly absorbed Impressionist ideas and techniques, and from 1879 to the last Impressionist exhibition in 1886 exhibited regularly with the group.

❖ In 1881 he came in contact with Cézanne, and bought some of the great painter’s work.

❖ In 1883 he gave up his business career as a stockbroker, and in 1885 he abandoned his wife, his children, and his well to do life to devote his life to art.

Paul GAUGUIN: (1848-1903)

The vision after the sermon, 1888.

Van Gogh painting his sunflowers, 1888.

❖ He became convinced that European urban life and everything about it was incurably sick. He spent less and less time in Paris and moved back and forth between Brittany, the island of Martinique, Arles (where he lived with Van Gogh), Tahiti, and the Marquesas Islands, where he died in poverty.

❖ In his work he renounced not only the instantaneity and formlessness of Impressionism but also Western appeal for naturalistic effects and realism.

❖ He recommended a return to the archaic and primitive style of art with simple forms and symbolism rendered in a decorative and stylized way.

The Yellow Christ, 1889.

Maternite, 1899.

❖ He sought the immediacy of experience, but intensified.

❖ Like Egyptian, medieval and Oriental artists, he outlined his shapes.

❖ Figures often took on the familiar Egyptian poses.

❖ He forms were flattened into decorative shapes and used brilliant colour to express feelings.

❖ His The Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), 1888, Ia Orana Maria, 1891, and The Day of the Gods, 1894, show the characteristics of his style.

❖ He worked for art dealers in The Hague, London, and Paris; as a language teacher in England; an evangelist in Brussels; and a missionary to coal miners in Belgium before he devoted his life to painting.

❖ In his work runs a theme of love for humanity, of life, and of things which produced works that were intensely personal, exuberant and vibrant.

❖ Even his mental illness, which brought himself to be admitted to a sanitarium for help and rest, and his untimely suicide, did not prevent him from becoming the first great Dutch painter since the 17th century.

❖ He began painting at the age of 27 and produced over 800 drawings and paintings in the ten years leading up to his suicide in 1890.

Vincent VAN GOGH: (1853-1890)

The Potato Eaters, 1885.

Seine at the stove, 1882.

❖ Like Cézanne, Van Gogh was considered a failure in the art world. He sold only one painting while he was alive even though his brother Theo was an art dealer. Yet in recent years his painting Irises sold for $54,000,000.

❖ Much of what we know about Van Gogh, his mental states, and his ideas concerning painting are through his letters to his brother that were kept and later published.

❖ His early works were traditionally rendered in dark and somber colours. In 1886 he went to Paris to stay with his brother Theo and was introduced to the colouristic works of the Impressionists and compositions and patterns of Japanese prints.

Irises, 1890.

Hospital at Arles, 1889.

❖ His works from this point onward can be described as having radiant and brilliant colours, and textured surfaces accomplished with strong choppy brush strokes and impasto.

❖ The fact that he intended to say something about the subject or about himself and his connection to the subject through his work makes him the first Expressionist artist.

❖ Examples of his approach to painting technique can be seen in Starry Night, 1889, Portrait of a Peasant, 1888, and his several self-portraits.

❖ His works often give the impression that they had been produced in a creative burst of energy, emotion and passion.

Bedroom, 1889.

Starry Night, 1889.

Portrait of a peasant, 1885.

Self-Portrait, 1889.

Self-Portrait with bandaged ear, 1885.

Van Gogh, Terrace Cafe, 1888 Van Gogh,Bedroom in Arles, 1888

Van Gogh, Wheat field under threatening skies, 1890

Final painting before Van Gogh shot himself and succumbed to his wound two days later.

❖ Toward the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, France still dominated the art scene. However a number of artist outside of France attempted the direct expression of emotion with pigments with little care for Impressionism’s goals or techniques. A few artists found merit in the emotional works of Goya, Van Gogh, and Gauguin in expressing their feelings towards their bleak cultural environment.

Turn-of-the-Century Expressionism

❖ Tragedy in his early life (death of his mother and sister) affected his temperament and painting.

❖ His work dealt with death and dying, anxiety, loss and abandonment, and loneliness. His subject matter was too pessimistic and gloomy for most people’s taste to appreciate it.

❖ The Cry or The Scream, 1893 is a work of a person walking along a seashore promenade, and has put his hands to his head, bursting with anguish. The landscape around him heaves in waves as if vibrating along with his inner turmoil, intensified by the use of red, yellow, and green in the background.

❖ His work had later been a strong influence in the development of the German Expressionist movement I the 20th century.

Edvard MUNCH: (1863-1944)

❖ Went to Paris from Spain in 1900.

❖ His work reflected the tragic mood of urban society. His great skill as an artist had not been known in Paris. He was homesick, lonely, and poor.

❖ The work of his Blue Period (for obvious reasons) depicted beggars, the homeless and poor families.

❖ In the works from this period express sadness through colour and by the attitudes of the figures.

Pablo PICASSO: (1881-1974)

Picasso, The Old Guitarist, 1903Picasso, La Celestina, 1903

Picasso, The Tragedy, 1903

❖ A self-taught painter, his work was a combination of imagination, poetry, and real artistic sensitivity. This helped his work to be rapidly known and appreciated in the art circles.

❖ His primitive style was due to his lack of training and the resulting technical limitations. His work, however, was innocent and truthful.

❖ Picasso and Gauguin called him the godfather of 20th century painting.

❖ His work in contrast to art of the day was crafted without evidence of brushstrokes.

Henri ROUSSEAU: (1844-1910)

Rousseau, Hungry Lion, 1905

Rousseau, The Dream, 1910

Rousseau, Sleeping Gypsy, 1897