Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in
1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet.
Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists.
Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations: they continued
using vivid colours, often thick application of paint, 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 colour.
Overview 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 colour.
Paul Cézanne set out to restore a sense of order and structure to painting, to "make
of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the museums".
He achieved this by reducing objects to their basic shapes while retaining the saturated
colours of Impressionism.
The Impressionist Camille Pissarro experimented with Neo-Impressionist ideas between the mid-1880s
and the early 1890s.
Discontented with what he referred to as romantic Impressionism, he investigated Pointillism
which he called scientific Impressionism before returning to a purer Impressionism in the
last decade of his life.
Vincent van Gogh used colour and vibrant swirling brush strokes to convey his feelings and his
state of mind.
Although they often exhibited together, Post-Impressionist artists were not in agreement concerning a
cohesive movement.
Younger painters during the 1890s and early 20th century worked in geographically disparate
regions and in various stylistic categories, such as Fauvism and Cubism.
Defining Post-Impressionism
The term was coined in 1910 by Roger Fry in the title of an exhibition of modern French
painters: Manet and the Post-Impressionists, organized by Fry for the Grafton Galleries
in London.
Most of the artists in the exhibition were younger than the Impressionists.
Fry later explained: "For purposes of convenience, it was necessary to give these artists a name,
and I chose, as being the vaguest and most non-committal, the name of Post-Impressionism.
This merely stated their position in time relatively to the Impressionist movement."
John Rewald limited the scope to the years between 1886 and 1892 in his pioneering publication
on Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin: Rewald considered it to continue his History
of Impressionism, and pointed out that a "subsequent volume dedicated to the second half of the
post-impressionist period" Post-Impressionism: From Gauguin to Matisse was to follow, extending
the period covered to other artistic movements derived from Impressionism and confined to
the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Rewald focused on outstanding early Post-Impressionists active in France and their relations as well
as the artistic circles they frequented: Neo-Impressionism: ridiculed by contemporary
art critics as well as artists as Pointillism; Seurat and Signac would have preferred other
terms: Divisionism for example Cloisonnism: a short-lived term introduced
in 1888 by the art critic Édouard Dujardin, was to promote the work of Louis Anquetin,
and was later also applied to contemporary works of his friend Émile Bernard
Synthetism: another short-lived term coined in 1889 to distinguish recent works of Gauguin
and Bernard from that of more traditional Impressionists exhibiting with them at the
Café Volpini.
Pont-Aven School: implying little more than that the artists involved had been working
for a while in Pont-Aven or elsewhere in Brittany.
Symbolism: a term highly welcomed by vanguard critics in 1891, when Gauguin dropped Synthetism
as soon as he was acclaimed to be the leader of Symbolism in painting.
Furthermore, in his introduction to Post-Impressionism, Rewald opted for a second volume featuring
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Rousseau "le Douanier", Les Nabis and Cézanne as well as the Fauves,
the young Picasso and Gauguin's last trip to the South-Sea; it was to expand the period
covered at least into the first decade of the 20th century—yet this second volume
remained unfinished.
Reviews and adjustments Rewald wrote that "the term 'Post-Impressionism'
is not a very precise one, though a very convenient one."
Convenient, when the term is by definition limited to French visual arts derived from
Impressionism since 1886.
Rewald's approach to historical data was narrative rather than analytic, and beyond this point
he believed it would be sufficient to "let the sources speak for themselves."
Rival terms like Modernism or Symbolism were never as easy to handle, for they covered
literature, architecture and other arts as well, and they expanded to other countries.
Modernism, thus, is now considered to be the central movement within international western
civilization with its original roots in France, going back beyond the French Revolution to
the Age of Enlightenment.
Symbolism, however, is considered to be a concept which emerged a century later in France,
and implied an individual approach.
Local national traditions as well as individual settings therefore could stand side by side,
and from the very beginning a broad variety of artists practicing some kind of symbolic
imagery, ranged between extreme positions: The Nabis for example united to find synthesis
of tradition and brand new form, while others kept to traditional, more or less academic
forms, when they were looking for fresh contents: Symbolism is therefore often linked to fanatastic,
esoteric, erotic and other non-realist subject matter.
To meet the recent discussion, the connotations of the term 'Post-Impressionism' were challenged
again: Alan Bowness and his collaborators expanded the period covered to 1914, but limited
their approach widely on the 1890s to France.
Other European countries are pushed back to standard connotations, and Eastern Europe
is completely excluded.
So, while a split may be seen between classical 'Impressionism' and 'Post-Impressionism' in
1886, the end and the extent of 'Post-Impressionism' remains under discussion.
For Bowness and his contributors as well as for Rewald, 'Cubism' was an absolutely fresh
start, and so Cubism has been seen in France since the beginning, and later in Anglosaxonia.
Meanwhile Eastern European artists, however, did not care so much for western traditions,
and proceeded to manners of painting called abstract and suprematic—terms expanding
far into the 20th century.
According to the present state of discussion, Post-Impressionism is a term best used within
Rewald's definition in a strictly historical manner, concentrating on French art between
1886 and 1914, and re-considering the altered positions of impressionist painters like Claude
Monet, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, and others—as well as all new brands at the
turn of the century: from Cloisonnism to Cubism.
The declarations of war, in July/August 1914, indicate probably far more than the beginning
of a World War—they signal a major break in European cultural history, too.
Along with general art history information given about "Post-Impressionism" works, there
are many museums that offer additional history, information and gallery works, both online
and in house, that can help viewers understand a deeper meaning of "Post-Impressionism" in
terms of fine art and traditional art applications.
Gallery of major Post-Impressionist artists
See also Art periods
Cubism Kapists
Neo-impressionism Expressionism
References and sources References
Sources Bowness, Alan, et alt.: Post-Impressionism.
Cross-Currents in European Painting, Royal Academy of Arts & Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
London 1979 ISBN 0-297-77713-0 Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline
External links Georges Seurat, 1859-1891, a full text exhibition
catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Toulouse-Lautrec in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art