POST-IMPRESSIONISM: AUTHORS, WORKS AND CHARACTERISTICS - ART - 2025

Post-impressionism is the term used to refer to the pictorial styles typical of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They are a series of cultural manifestations prior to impressionism in rejection of its excess of objectivity when reflecting reality.

The Post-Impressionists printed more subjectivity in their representation of the world, although they preserved the use of vivid colors, distinguishable brushstrokes, and real-life themes.

The term post-impressionism was born in 1910, when the art critic Roger Fry named an exhibition in London that featured paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat and Cezanne.

Historic context

The time in which the artists classified as post-impressionists are located was characterized by radical changes in many orders of human life.

At that time cinematography and animation emerged. On the other hand, eclectic architecture emerges after the combination of different styles.

Industrialization triumphs, the universal vote is admitted and scientific thought gains prominence.

However, in the cultural world, Romanticism prevails with its promotion of passion, the irrational, disorder, color, and the ode to the Middle Ages and North European mythologies.

But soon that Romanticism gives way to the individualistic maxim that each artist should promote his own avant-garde. Many avant-gardes then appear.

This reflects a society that lives in a constant revolution, in which the deadlines are getting smaller and the pace of change is faster.

Background

The antecedent of this movement is found in Impressionism, because all Post-Impressionists practiced Impressionism.

Impressionism was an almost oppositional movement to the status quo of the time; he broke academic, economic and social schemes in art.

They tried to portray reality as they perceived it. Without much reasoning, just impression. The focus was not on the object but on the perceived sensation.

For this reason, the impressionist created his work in situ and quickly. In fact, their exhibitions were organized outside the official or traditional circuits.

In Impressionist works, the value of light and its movement is highlighted, through the use of a variety of colors in which only black was absent. For them, the color black did not exist in nature.

Over time many of the artists of this movement gained renown and the debacle of their initial postulates began.

At that time, already at the end of the 19th century, Post-Impressionism emerged as a more evolved movement, or rather as a way to break with what was proclaimed by the Impressionists.

It is a more personal painting where light is the protagonist, and volume and shapes are almost lost.

Post-Impressionists are only united by the interest in recovering compositional rigor, the linear definition of figures and the autonomy of the image.

For the leading painters of this moment in art, motive is just an excuse for creation.

In post-impressionism, features of the pictorial movements that will come and mark the twentieth century are noted.

Main features

The most determining features of the artists included in the Post-Impressionist movement were their way of delving into the subjectivity of reality and representing the perception of light.

However, it must be said that it is a way of grouping together a group of artists who lived and created after Impressionism, and almost in opposition to it.

However, it could be said that they shared certain characteristics:

- Use of contrasting colors.

- Interest in focusing on the expressiveness of objects and human figures.

- Reconciliation between the volumetric effect and aesthetic taste.

- Inclusion of topics considered more exotic.

- Predominance of pure colors.

- Geometry of the bodies.

- Imaginative creations with cursive brushstrokes.

The abstraction of Post-Impressionist art and the expressive freedom that it displayed inspired later movements, such as Cubism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Surrealism, and Futurism.

The 5 most important Post-Impressionist artists

1- Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Pual Cézanne was an artist who tried to highlight the material qualities of painting, stamping living beings and landscapes in his works, with volumes and relationships between the surfaces included.

This volume is achieved, in part, thanks to the inclusion of geometric shapes and his brushstrokes classified as constructive. It also manages to create volume by portraying the effect of light on colors.

Cézanne brings objects to the fore and, in some cases, deforms them a bit to indicate different points of view. This analysis of the work interests him a lot and that is why he spends time in his workshop.

From an aesthetic point of view, he considered nature in its depth. In fact, the mountain is a recurring image in his works.

His treatment of color in large spots generates different planes in the painting. He used contrasting colors and shadows, managing to represent a prismatic light.

These last two characteristics of his paintings are what make one think that he was ahead of the works of Cubism.

His works include still lifes (Apples and oranges), landscapes (L'Estaque), or the series of Card Players.

In these works the use of chromatic planes is very evident, in order to define both the volumes and the structure of reality.

2- Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)

Gauguin permeated his paintings of the exotic world of Tahiti and the so-called primitivism of Britain.

His works show an expressive, even arbitrary use of color. It also uses it to highlight its symbolic character.

Symbolism is a constant in Gauguin's works. A recurring example is the use of flowers to symbolize innocence.

His paintings focus on flat and decorative surfaces. It uses the technique of cloisonism, which consists of the use of compartments, outlined in black or blue within the painting. Simplify the forms to give simplicity and harmony to your works.

Gauguin renounces perspective in his paintings, thereby distancing himself from the roots of Cubism.

Also suppresses shading and shading. His sense of color will be noticed later in the Fauvists and the Expressionists.

3- Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890)

Van Gogh was a Dutch artist who began dealing with social issues, thanks to the influence of his Protestantism and the work of Millet.

Later, his work focused on painting figures and landscapes with sinuous, cursive, thick brushstrokes full of colors that contrast in novel ways.

He loaded his works with subjectivity, trying to express the artist's emotions, which is why he is considered an initiator of expressionism.

Regarding the subject, anything could serve Van Gogh, so the accent was not on the image but on the chromatic treatment that was given to it.

And that chromaticism was the expressive vehicle to convey the emotions and subjectivity of the painter.

I used to paint with the colors taken from the tube directly, without mixing. It intentionally distorted the composition, perspective, and relative size of objects for expressive purposes.

Cypresses and stars were a constant theme at one time in his artistic life. And her brushstroke went from being doughy and elongated, to being in spirals and swirls.

He was not recognized in life. On the contrary, he was marginalized. After the decline of his mental illness, he committed suicide.

4- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)

He was an aristocratic and bohemian artist who brought brothels to art. His paintings reflected the atmosphere of nightclubs with dancers, singers and prostitutes.

His work abounded in contour engravings and flat colors, thanks to the influence of Japanese engravings. Drawing and capturing movement are remarkable features of his artistic creations.

He is considered as the promoter of the poster, although his were artistic posters with decorative and sinuous lines, very characteristic of modernism.

5- Georges Seurat (1859-1891)

He is an artist who perfected the technique of pointillism. His pictures are the sum of small colored dots placed next to their complements.

It was the viewer who joined the dots and received the impression of the light reality.

Most Outstanding Works of Post-Impressionism

• The Card Players (Paul Cézanne- 1891)
• The mountain of Saint Victoire (Paul Cézanne - 1885 - 1887)
• Vision after the sermon (Paul Gauguin - 1888)
• Tahitian Women (Paul Gauguin - 1891)
• Starry Night (Vincent Van Gogh -1889)
• Wheat Field with Crows (Vincent Van Gogh - 1890)
• Sunday afternoon at La Grande Jatte (Georges Seurat- 1884 - 1886)
• Bath at Asnières (Georges Seurat - 1883 - 1884)
• Dance at the Moulin Rouge (Toulouse-Lautrec- 1890)
• La Goulue (Toulouse-Lautrec - 1891)

References

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3. Ramé, Gloria (2011). Post-Impressionism: Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec. Recovered from: arteaula23.blogspot.com
4. Vidal Mesonero, AN (2014). The 10 great impressionist and post-impressionist artists. Recovered from: cromacultura.com
5. Wikipedia (s / f). Postimpressionism. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org
6. Wikipedia (s / f). XIX century. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org