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
Cezanne: brushstroke
Every brushstroke was a building block and was placed with thought.
He used rectangular brushstrokes which do not express emotion, but form a rhythmic pattern
Cezanne : composition
Emphasis is on underlying structure.
He said that everything in nature is based on the cylinder, the sphere and the cone.
He never completely reduced natural objects to geometric shapes, but he left out detail and accidental effect.
Cezanne: approach
He can be classified as a formalist because he worked intellectually and the arrangement of line colour and shape were highly important to him.
He was interested in the underlying, never changing structure.
There was no school of Cezanne, but very few artist were NOT influenced by him, so he is given the title, “father of modern art”
What title was Cezanne given
The father of modern art
Where is Cezanne’s influence seen
Cubism
Van Gogh’s background
He was the son of a preacher. He began painting at 27. H
What were Van Gogh’s early works like
They were sombre and dark. They portrayed the drudgery and colourlessness of the lives of the mineworkers and farm labourers.
Who was van Gogh’s brother
Theo
Why did Van Gogh cit off his ear
He confronted gaugin with s razor blade, but panicked and went to a brothel. While he was there he cut off his ear.
Which painting did Van Gogh sell during his life
Red vines
Van Gogh: influences
Social commentary and empathy with the poor that he saw in Daumier’s and Millet’s works
Delacroix’ use of complementary colours next to each other
Japanese prints- simplicity, bright colours and clear outlines
Bright colours and informal technique of Impressionism.
Own personality in its humanity and need to express himself.
Van Gogh: subject mater
Landscape, portraits, interiors
Worked from reality but portrayed his emotions
Van Gogh: space and depth
Always has depth
Often placed large masses in the middle
Usually used line perspective and often the horizon is 3/4 of the canvas
Van Gogh: colour
Known for his emotional use of colour.
At first the colours were sombre
Colours were over-emphasised to portray emotions
Pallet characterised by strong, pure colours and often yellow were placed against blues and violets.
Van Gogh: brushwork
Brushstrokes are a physical indication of his emotional state and they create rhythmic movements.
Strong linear character
Paint was often applied with brush, palette knife or tube
Van Gogh: Composition
Always worked from reality
Simplified and distorted
Traditional composition
Only gave the essence of the scene
Van Gogh: approach to his work
He was an expressionist and his art and life form a unity
No artist before his gave such a portrayal of inner feeling
His art is personal and subjective
Regarded as the father of 20th century expressionism as he influenced Munch and the German Expressionists
Paul Gauguin: history
Successful stockbroker. Wife, Mette and 5 children
Became an art collector and Sunday-painter after meeting pisarro and looking at impressionists works.
Gave up work and devoted himself to painting. His wife went to live with family and Gauguin lived alone, in poverty, ill and unhappy
What was Gauguin’s style
Sythetism
Where did Gauguin decide to visit
The Martinique islands but only got as far as panama. He worked as a labourer and continued his journey
Why did Gauguin go to the Polynesian islands
To escape European civilisation and everything artificial and conventional. He felt that the civilised society was sick and dying. He hoped to find artistic rejuvenation by living in a primitive culture. Had conflicts with the colonial authorities and Catholic Church
Gauguin: influences
Early works- Impressionism
Exotic places. Preferred the lifestyle and art of non-western society because they were not polluted by western ideas and values.
Gaugin: subject matter
Believed that an artist should work from memory to create an imaginative work
Often used religious and spiritual themes
Portrayal of man was important. He later filled his works with idealised figures from the South Sea Islands
Gaugin: space/ depth
Used flat spaces created by different horizontal bands of colour
Background as bright as foreground
No attempt to create a naturalistic portrayal
Gaugin: colour
He believed that colour was symbolic and imaginative. No modelling was represented
Flat decorative shapes with bright colours
Backgrounds and bright as foreground
Used cloisonism
What is cloisonism
Where bright colours areas are separated by dark contour lines (stained glass window)
Gaugin: brushwork
Avoided modelling in flat areas using contour lines.
Used broad parallel brushstrokes
Gauguin: composition
Placed = importance on +ve and -ve space
Often divided comp. with rhythmic decorative lines to create strong 2D shapes
Didn’t copy nature, worked from imagination
Monumental simplified figures
Gauguin: approach to his work
Called his style synthetism
Strongly opposed to naturalism
Works are mysterious and exotic
Had a direct influence on fauvism
What is synthetism
A type of symbolism where the artist uses their imagination. They must work from their imagination because the memory only remembers that which meaningful/ symbolic. The final work is thus a synthesis of the original idea. It is characterised by flat colour, no shadows, colonialism and the freedom to interpret shapes and to simplify them.
