Post-Impressionism
is a term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in
1910, to describe the development of European art since Manet. John
Rewald, one of the first professional art historians to focus on
the birth of early modern art, limited the scope to the years
between 1886 and 1892 in his pioneering publication on
Post-Impressionism: From
Vincent Van
Gogh to
Paul Gauguin
(1956): Rewald considered it to continue his History of
Impressionism (1946), and pointed out that a "subsequent volume
dedicated to the second half of the post-impressionist period"[1] -
Post-Impressionism: From Paul Gauguin to
Henri Matisse -
was to follow, extending the period covered to other artistic
movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries ? to artistic
movements based on or derived from
Impressionism, at
all.
Post-Impressionism was both an extension of
Impressionism and
a rejection of its limitations. Post-Impressionists continued using
vivid colours, thick application of paint, distinctive brushstrokes
and real-life subject matter, but they were more inclined to
emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect,
and to use unnatural or arbitrary color. The post-Impressionists
were dissatisfied with the triviality of subject matter and the
loss of structure in Impressionist paintings, though they did not
agree on the way forward. Georges Seurat and his followers
concerned themselves with pointillism, the systematic use of tiny
dots of color.
Paul Cézanne set
out to restore a sense of order and structure to painting. He
achieved this by reducing objects to their basic shapes while
retaining the bright fresh colours of Impressionism.
Vincent Van
Gogh used colour and vibrant swirling brushstrokes to convey his
feelings and his state of mind. Although they often exhibited
together, they were not a cohesive movement. They worked in
geographically disparate regions and in various stylistic
categories, such as fauvism and
cubism.
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