Chapter 3 postimpressionism

Toward the end of 19th Century the pace quickened. Europe’s
population started migrating to North America, Latin America, Siberia,
South Africa, and Australia. By 1900 the European population outside
of Europe numbered 560 million, representing more than 1/3 of the
world’s entire population.
Industrial and technological revolution continued. The technological
advances didn’t always have positive outcomes. Psychology and
philosophy influenced the arts prompting artists to wonder whether
the world would be best understood by looking inward or outward.
Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher of the late 19th century,
challenged the foundations of traditional morality and Christianity. He
believed in life, creativity, health, and the realities of the world we live
in, rather than those situated in a world beyond.

The most advanced artists sought to discover a more complete reality
that would encompass the inner and the outer world. Roger Fry
designated them members of Post-Impressionism.
Post-Impressionism is an umbrella term used to describe a variety of
artists who were influenced by Impressionism but took their art in
different directions. There is no single well-defined style of Post-
Impressionism, but in general it is less casual and more emotionally
charged than Impressionist work.
THE POETIC SCIENCE OF COLOR: Seurat and the Neo-
Expressionists
Georges Seurat is known as the pioneer of the technique commonly
known as Divisionism, or Pointillism. The influence of very different
sources are apparent throughout his work. He believed that modern art
ought to show contemporary life in ways similar to classical art, except
that it would use technologically informed techniques.

Georges Seurat, A Sunday
Afternoon on the Islan of La
Grande Jatte,
1884-6. Oil on canvas. The
Art Institute of Chicago
Seurat sought to abandon Impressionism's preoccupation with the
fleeting moment and focused on the essential and unchanging in life.
Seurat subscribed to a range of scientific ideas about color, form and
expression. He believed that the directions of lines, and colors
temperatures could have particular expressive effects. He also believed
that contrasting or complementary colors can optically mix to achieve
more vivid tones that can be achieved by mixing paint alone.

Georges Seurat. The Couple
study for Sunday on La
Grande Jatte. 1884.
Conté Crayon on paper.
The British Museum, London.
Seurat worked for more than
one ear on La Grande Jatte
painting. He made twenty-
seven preliminary drawings
and over thirty color
sketchces. This is one of the
cketches. He used txtured
paper and Conté crayon to
crate the effects he wanted in
the painting.

Georges Seurat, Le Chahut
(English: The Can-can), 1889-90
Oil on Canvas.
Albright-Knox Art Gallery,
Buffalo, NY.
The painting depicts a group of four
dancers at the Moulin Rouge.
Influences of Fauvism, Cubism,
Futurism and Orphism are evident.
The Dancers, two women and two men
with their legs raised forming curves
and rhythmic repetition, create a
synthetic sense of movement.

Paul Signac, Opus 217.
Against the Enamel of a
Background Rhythmic with
Beats and Angles, Tones, and
Tints, Portrait of M. Félix
Fénéon in 1890.
Oil on Canvas. 1890. The
Museum of Modern Art, NY.
Felix Fénéon was an art dealer, collector, curator, political activist,
critic, and friend of Signac. In this painting Signac combines
figuration and abstraction, he sets Fénéon's profile against a swirling
background—a kaleidoscopic depiction of optical theorist Charles
Henry's recently published color wheel. The long title is possibly a
spoof on scientific terminology.

During the entire nineteenth-century many artists experimented
extensively. Cézanne was the most significant artist, his ideas marking the
emergence of twentieth-century modernism.
Paul Cézanne, Battle of Love.
c. 1880.Oil on canvas.
National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.
FORM AND NATURE: Paul
Cézanne
EARLY CAREER AND REALTION TO IMPRESSIONISM
Cézanne applied the paint to the canvas in a series of methodical
brushstrokes, "constructing" a picture rather than "painting" it. He
believed that every visual element should contribute to its overall
structural integrity of the painting.

Paul Cézanne, Still Life with,
Basket of Apples, c. 1893.
Oil on canvas. The Art Institute of
Chicago.
“Painting from nature is not
copying the object,” Paul
Cézanne wrote, “it is realizing
one’s sensations.”
In Still Life with Apples and
other paintings, Cézanne
concentrated on the visual and
physical qualities of the paint
and canvas, not on illusion. This
is apparent in two sides of the
table, which do not align.
Cézanne left some areas of
canvas to appear unfinished to
defy the illusion.

Paul Cézanne, Mont Saint-
Victoire Seen from Les
Lauves, 1902-04. Oil on
canvas. Private collection.
Paul Cézanne's mature
paintings, display a distinctly
sculptural dimension. He
represented each item of still
life, landscape, or portrait
examined from several angles,
which were then recombined
by the artist as what Cézanne
called "a harmony parallel to
nature."
It was this aspect of Cézanne's
analytical approach that led
the future Cubists to regard
him as the first Cubist artist..

Paul Cézanne, The Large
Bathers. 1900-1906.
Oil on canvas.
Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Large Bathers, created by Cezanne near the end of his life, depicts
lounging nudes in a landscape. The work is thought to illustrate the
artist’s desire to connect the human being with nature. Critics
considered The Large Bathers to be some of the most radical, moving
works of the 20th-century.

Symbolism was an artistic and a literary movement that suggested
ideas through symbols and emphasized the meaning behind the
forms, lines, shapes, and colors.
Symbolism developed aslo abstract modes of expression to reflect
the psychological truth and the idea that behind the physical world
is a spiritual reality. Symbolists often used dreams and visionsas a
source of inspiration.
Artists associated with Symbolism emphasize emotions, feelings,
ideas, and subjectivity rather than realism. Their works are personal
and express their belief in the artist's power to reveal truth.
Their subject matter combined religious mysticism and he decadent,
and is typically characterized by an interest in the morbid, the dream
world, melancholy, and death.
THE TRIUMPH OF IMAGINATION:
Symbolism

REVERIE AND REPRESENTATION:
Moreau, Puvis, and Redon
This painting illustrates the myth that tells
of The Apparition depicts Salome who,
according to the Gospels, bewitched the
ruler Herod Antipas, the husband of her
mother Herodiad, with her dancing. As a
reward she was given the head of John
the Baptist.
Moreau is illustrating Salome's dance.
The head appeared to her as the image of
her wish. Moreau has used several other
motifs for his composition.
Gustave Moreau, L'Apparition
[The Apparition], c. 1876,.
Oil on canvas. Fogg Art
Museums. Harvard Art
Museums, Cambridge, MA.

During the Paris Commune
in 1871, the town hall (Hôtel
de Ville) was burned down
and the Third Republic was
established. Summer and
water resonated with the
citizens of Paris as a
symbolic cure for the bitter
winter of 1870. The work is
marked by flatness. This
artwork contributed to
Georges Seurat, Pablo
Picasso, Paul Gauguin, and
their contemporaries to
integrate flatness and
simplified figures into their
practices.
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Summer, 1891.
Oil on canvas. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

The single eye - the all-seeing eye of God
- is an old symbol. Redon transformed it
by depicting it as the symbol of the spirit
rising up. It looks upward toward the
divine. The light surrounding the eye
helps invokes the supernatural.
Redon's work should not be confused
with Surrealism, as it is meant to create a
coherent, specific narrative.
Redon’s work is a reflection of his own
private world expressed in personal
symbols which makes it more open to
interpretation.
Odilon Redon, The Eye
Like a Strange Balloon
Mounts Toward Infinity,
1882. Lithograph. The
Museum of Modern Art.

Henri Rousseau became a full-time
artist after retiring from his post at
the Paris customs office - a job
that prompted his nickname, "Le
Douanier”. Self-taught, he
developed a unique style that
earned him the respect of modern
artists like Pablo Picasso and
Wassily Kandinsky.
His work is characterized by
absence of correct proportions,
one-point perspective, and use of
sharp colors. Such features
resulted in a body of work imbued
with a sense of mystery and
eccentricity.
THE NAÏVE ART OF HENRI
ROUSSEAU
Henri Rousseau, Carnival
Evening, 1886. Oil on canvas.
Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Henry Rousseau. The Sleeping Gipsy.
1897. Oil on canvas. The Museum of
Modern Art, New York.
Rousseau is known for
lush jungle scenes inspired
by frequent trips to the
Paris gardens and zoo.
This painting depicts a
moonlit scene taking place
in a desert, where a female
gypsy sleeps unharmed by
a lion. The strangeness of
the scene is enhanced by
the sharp details of
everything in the painting.

EARLY CAREER AND THE
GATES OF HELL
A young officer was the model for
this sculpture which generated a
great controversies.
First, the composition and surface
treatment were unconventional by
academic standards.
Second, Rodin was accused of
showing a direct cast from the body
rather than a modeled sculpture.
The allegations reflect Rodin's
technical skills. Photographs of the
officer were a testament .
AN ART REBORN: Rodin and the Sculpture at the Fin de Siècle
Auguste Rodin The Age of
Bronze, 1876. Minneapolis
Museum of Art.

Rodin worked on this project for more than
twenty years. Rodin chose to interpret
Dante's Inferno for the subject matter.
He set out to rival Lorenzo Ghiberti's
famous bronze doors for the Baptistery of
Florence Cathedral, the Gates of Paradise
(1425-52. Like Ghiberti, Rodin initially
planned to split the composition into a
series of panels. He changed his plans after
seeing Michelangelo's Last Judgment
(1534-41), and created a more fluid
composition. The plaster version of the
sculpture was included in the exhibition at
the Place de l'Alma in Paris in 1900. , Two
bronze casts were created in1925, eight
years after Rodin’s death..
Auguste Rodin, The Gates of
Hell, 1899. Bronze. Rodin
Museum, Paris.

Auguste Rodin, The Burghers of
Calais. 1884-85. Bronze
Rodin created this sculpture for
the town of Calais to portray the
group of heroic city leaders who
sacrificed themselves in 1347 to
save the town from a siege by
the English King Edward III.
Rodin included all six men. The
men look downtrodden, but
determined. They are dressed in
rags, and their hands and feet
are expressively enlarged.
Today it remains well-loved as
an emblem of civic sacrifice.
One version is also standing
outside the Houses of
Parliament in London.
THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS AND LATER CAREER

Like Rodin in The Burghers of Calais,
Meunier focuses on the dignity of humanity.
In his work, Meunier depicted members of the
working class and social issues of the day.
This dock hand, identifiable by the jute sack
that covers his head, is typical of Meunier’s
idealized images.
Constantin Meunier, The Dock Hand, cast
1905. Bronze. Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston.

The work reflects Claudel's
increasingly unstable mental
health. This sculpture seems to
emphasize feelings of Claudel's
notion that others want to harm
her.
The walls’ organic shape look
heavy, creating a sense of
confinement. It looks like the
figures are seen in a dissected
brain, perhaps making
reference to the experience of
pressure within Claudel's mind.
EXPLORING NEW POSSIBILITIES: Claudel and Rosso
Auguste Rodin
The Burghers of Calais. 1884-85.
Bronze

Medardo Rosso's style has been
called Impressionist. However, his
images are a synthesis of memory
and emotion.
His sculpture is a reflection of
Rossos’s focus on the effects of
light on the materiality of sculpture.
Auguste Rodin have overshadowed
Rosso, but he has been recognized
as a decisive contributor to the birth
of Modernism.
Medardo Rosso, The
Concierge, 1883. Wax over
plaster. The Museum of
Modern Art.

GAUGUIN
Gauguin's early work was influenced
by impressionism. He developed his
own style later, which is defined as
synthetic symbolism.
In The Vision after the Sermon,
Gauguin included both the realities of
the women and that of their minds as
they imagine the struggle. The tree and
the change in scale divides the
realities.
This painting show how Goguin
achieved abstract qualities through the
use of outlining and flattening.
Gauguin achieved conveying
spirituality in an abstracted way.
PRIMITIVISM AND AVANT-GARDE:
Gauguin and Van Gogh
Paul Gauguin, The Vision
after the Sermon (Jacob
Wrestling with the Angel),
1888. Oil on Canvas. National
Gallery of Scotland,
Edinbourgh.

Paul Gauguin, Where Do We come from? What Are We? Where Are We
Going? 1897. Oil on canvas. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Gauguin who attended a seminary education in his youth,
conceptualized his art as a form of spiritual communication though
images. This painting is also a metaphor of the creative process.
What makes Gauguin modern is the contrasting and balancing of
Christian and non-Christian religious symbols, using morality tales as
vehicles for narratives about eroticism and the abundance of nature.

VAN GOGH
The Artist strove to convey his
emotional and spiritual state in each of
his artworks. In this painting the
clashing colors are meant to express
Van Gogh’s views on the ills of
humanity.
He also felt that colors took on a
different quality at night under gas
light. He showed that by painting the
white clothing of the café owner in a
lemon yellow.
Van Gogh’s use of gestural application
of paint and symbolic colors to express
subjective emotions defined many
subsequent modern movements
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch,
(The Night Café, 1888
Oil on canvas. Yale University
Galelry of Art, New Haven.

This self-portrait was painted for
Paul Gauguin as part of swap
between the artists.
He described the process of
painting this self-portrait in several
letters to his brother Theo,
explaining how he was influenced
by Japanese prints, and painted the
background without any shadows.
Van Gogh painted 36 self-portraits
in ten years.
Van Gogh pushed his style to
greater expression with intense,
energetic brushwork and saturated,
complementary colors.
Vincent Van Gogh, Self-Portrait,
dedicated to Paul Gauguin,
1888. Oil on canvas. Hardvard
University Art Museums,
Cambridge, MA

Van Gogh painted Starry Night from
memory. The emphasis on the
inner, emotional life is clear in the
swirling, tumultuous depiction of
the sky.
Here, Van Gogh followed strictly the
principles of design in which the
forms are distributed across the
surface of the canvas in an exact
order to create visual balance.
The result is a landscape rendered
in a rigorous formal arrangement
beyond the representation of the
physical world.
Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night.,
1889, Oil on canvas.
The Museum of Modern Art, New
York.

Paul Sérusier, The Talisman,
1888. Oil on wood cigar-box
cover. Musée d'Orsay, Paris
A NEW GENERATION OF PROPHETS:
The Nabis
PAUL SÉRUSIER
This work is the beginning of Sérusier's
experimentation with color and abstraction,
focusing on translating his emotions onto
the canvas. He painted what he felt, not
what he saw as Gauguin encouraged him.
This is the painting that marks the creation
of the Nabis group. It was enthusiastically
adopted as a guide to future abstraction, of
sensation over visual fidelity.
Maurice Denis explained the effects of The
Talisman best when he said "thus we
learned that every work of art was a
transposition, a passionate equivalent of a
sensation received."

Jean-Édouard Vuillard, Woman
in Blue with Child, c.1899. Oil on
cardboard. Glasgow Art Gallery
and Museum, Kelvingrove.
VUILLARD AND BONNARD
Édouard Vuillard was a member of
Les Nabis group. He was drawn to
philosophical discussions about
poetry, music, theatre, and the
occult. Because he focused on
interior and domestic scenes, he is
referred to as an "intimist," along
with Pierre Bonnard.
Vuillard used the subject of the
interior to serve as a symbol for his
own interior self. This becomes a
modernist idea - a subjective view of
reality, gives the artist insight into
the truth.

Pierre Bonnard, Nude
against the Light, 1908.
Oil on canvas. Musée
Royaux de Beaux-Arts de
Belgique, Brussels.
. Pierre Bonnard traveled to the
Netherlands, Great Britain, Spain,
Italy and North Africa.
In 1924 Bonnard participated in an
important retrospective that was
held at Druet in Paris. In 1930 Pierre
he moved to Le Cannet where he
died on 23 January 1947
Bonnard is recognized as a great
colorist and master of subtle
compositions, used as vehicles for
which meaning is delivered through
apparently ordinary subjects.

One of Toulouse-Lautrec’s
favorite subjects, Louise Weber,
called La Goulue (The Glutton),
was known for her outrageous
behavior.
Lautrect depicted her here
performing her high-kicking
dance, provocatively raising her
hem to reveal her red stocking.
Henry de Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin
Rouge – La Goule, 1891. Color
lithograph. Victoria and Albert
Museum.
MONMARTRE:
At home with the Avant-Garde

This painting by the French
artist Suzanne Valadon, is one
of her most recognizable
works.
In Valadon's later works, she
uses strong colors and
focuses the viewers attention
to decorative backgrounds
and patterned materials.
Suzanne Valadon, The Blue Room,
1923. Oil on canvas. Centre d’Art et
de Culture Georges Pompidou.,
Paris.

Chapter 3 postimpressionism

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