Post-Impressionism Flashcards
What was post Impressionism a reaction against
Naturalism and the issue of light and colour that had inspired the impressionists.
What trends does post Impressionism embrace
Neo-classism of Seurat. It was never a cohesive movement, so it embraces many groups who were trying to replace Impressionism as t,ending art movement.
Where does the word ‘post-Impressionism’ come from
An English critic, Roger Fry
Who are 4 main post-impressionist artists
Cézanne
Van Gogh
Gauguin
Stern
How were these artists united
By their desires to overturn the superficiality of Impressionism. They felt impressionists had allowed their technique and effects of natural light to overshadow the subject matter
How did Cézanne overcome the problem
He sought greater pictorial structure
How did Van Gogh overcome the problem
He focused on an emotional response to a scene
How did Gauguin solve the problem
He sough a deeper engagement with expressive and symbolic content
How does Irma stern’s work relate to post-Impressionism
Pictorial structure, emotional response and expressive symbolic content
Cezanne’s background
Was the son of a wealthy banker. He was sent to study law in Paris, but convinced his father to let him study art. He became aware of the weakness of Impressionism and wanted to make a strong and durable movement. He was a fierce and solitary person who worked in dedicated seclusion.
What did cezanne’s early paintings look like
They were dark n tone and often sinister or violent in subject matter (murder, dwarfed painter friend)to erotic and macabre
What influenced cezanne’s works
Artists and the old masters
Impressionism
Mont Sainte- Victoire
How did artists influence Cezanne’s works
Pisarro introduced him to landscape painting. He was influenced by Delacroix and Courbet because of the structure in the work. Cezanne also studied the old masters
How did Impressionism influence Cezanne’s works
The bright pallet that impressionists used. He did however feel that they neglected structure and shape in the emphasis on colour and brush stroke.
What did Cezanne want to do to Impressionism
He wanted to make it something solid and everlasting, “like the art in museums”
How did Mont Sainte- Victoire influence Cezanne’s works
It was a mountain near his home and was one of his favourite subjects. He painted it more than 60 times. He was fascinated by the rugged architectural forms. He pained it from many angles.
Cezanne: subject matter
Limited subjects: landscapes, bathers, still lives and portraits.
He revived the tradition of the still life
He liked still lives because he could arrange his own objects for a concentrated study. He didn’t like people because they moved too much.
Cezanne: space and depth
Rejected one point perspective. He used a variety of viewpoints on one object allowing the viewer to see it from multiple perspectives.
He created a shallow depth by a succession of different colour planes and by overlapping paint in certain areas.
He never denied the 2-dimensionality of the canvas.
He didn’t want to copy nature, but make a construction according to nature by only representing the essentials
His perspective was often incorrect
Cezanne: colour
Modulation- one colour area should be related to the next.
Flat colour areas are broken into separate colour facets (mosaic)
Shapes are often outlined with darl contour lines
