Rather, what brought them together was a shared interest in openly exploring the mind of the artist.
What is Post-Impressionism?
While their styles, therefore, wildly varied, paintings completed in the Post-Impressionist manner share some similar qualities.
These include symbolic motifs, unnatural color, and painterly brushstrokes.
How Was Post-Impressionism Formed?
In the 1870s and 1880s,Impressionismdominatedavant-garde artin France.
Vincentvan Gogh, “TheStarry Night,” 1889 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Many up-and-coming artists, however, found fault in the Impressionists' focus on style rather than subject matter.
Much like the Post-Impressionists themselves, Fry believed that the beauty of art is inherently rooted in perception.
Art appreciates emotion in and for itself.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, “At the Moulin Rouge,” 1892 (Jacob Wrestling with an Angel),” 1888 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Today, these ideas help us to understand the common thread between these artists.
Instead, it should placeemphasis on symbolism, communicating messages from the artist’s own subconscious.
What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams.
Paul Cézanne, “Pyramid of Skulls,” 1901 (Photo: Andreagrossmann viaWikimedia Commons, Public domain)
These include Pointillism, Cloisonnism, Japonisme, and Primitivism.
Seurat’s paintingA Sunday Afternoon the Island of La Grande Jatteis often regarded as a hallmark of this style.
Paul Gauguin joined later and produced some of the Cloisonnism’s best-known examples, includingThe Yellow Christ.
Paul Gauguin, “The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with an Angel),” 1888 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
In others, likePortrait of Pere Tanguy, he simply employs Japanese art as an accent.
When we study Japanese art, we see a man who is no doubt wise, philosophical and intelligent.
And how does he spend his time?
Paul Cézanne, “The Bathers,” 1898 – 1905 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
he asks in a letter to his brother,Theo van Gogh, in 1888.
He studies a single blade of grass.
This is how he spends his life, and life is too short to do the whole.
Vincent van Gogh, “Undergrowth with Two Figures,” 1890 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Primitivism
Paul Gauguin, Where do we come from?
Where are we going?
Post-Impressionist artists like Paul Gauguin andHenri Rousseaupioneered the modern art approach with pieces likeWhere Do We Come From?
Detail of “Undergrowth with Two Figures” (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Where Are We Going?andThe Sleeping Gypsy, respectively.
Georges Seurat, “A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte,” 1884 – 1886 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Paul Gauguin, “The Yellow Christ,” 1891 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Vincent van Gogh, “Portrait Père Tanguy (Father Tanguy),” 1887 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Vincent van Gogh, “Flowering Plum Tree (after Hiroshige),” 1887 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)Left: Vincent van Gogh, “The Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige),” 1887 (Photo: Google Arts & Culture viaWikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Paul Gauguin, “Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?” 1897 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Henri Rousseau, “The Sleeping Gypsy,” 1897 (Photo: Oakenchips viaWikimedia Commons, Public domain)
