Post-Impressionism
Related: 1880s - 1890s - 1900s - 1910s - high keyed colors - Vincent van Gogh - modern art - French art - post-
Preceded by: Impressionism
Followed by: Dada - Surrealism
Definition
Post-Impressionism developed from Impressionism. From the 1880s several artists began to develop different precepts for the use of color, pattern, form and line, derived from the Impressionist example: Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Paul Cezanne and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Their work is known as Post-impressionism. Some of the original Impressionist artists also ventured into this new territory, particularly Camille Pissarro, and even Monet abandoned strict "plein air" painting. Despite this, the work of the original Impressionist painters is categorised under Impressionism. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism#Post-Impressionism [Mar 2006]
Post-impressionism is a term applied to painting styles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — after impressionism.
Their more exaggerated forms and use of colour, structure and line paved the way for later 20th century art styles such as fauvism and cubism.
Art critic Roger Fry first used the term to describe the Les Nabis group. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-impressionism [Jan 2006]
Les Nabis
Nabis (or Les Nabis; the prophets, from the Hebrew term for prophet) was a group of young post-impressionist avant-garde Parisian artists of the 1890s that influenced the fine arts and graphic arts in France at the turn of the 20th century. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Nabis [Jan 2006]
Félix Vallotton
Abduction of Europa (1908) - Félix Vallotton
The influence of Vallotton's work on 1920s art deco (take Tamara de Lempicka for example) can readily be seen in this work
Félix Vallotton (Lausanne, 28th December 1865 – 29th December 1925) was a Franco-Swiss post-impressionist painter, associated with the Nabis movement, as well as an engraver, illustrator, and writer.
Works
Vallotton dealt with all types of painting: still lifes, portraits, interiors, figures, nudes, landscapes and large mythological or allegorical scenes. Before the war he had already achieved recognition for his mastery of nudes and figures. Subsequently, his "composed landscapes", recreated from memory in his studio, met with a growing interest. Many were the sources which inspired his landscapes: Switzerland and in particular the area around Lac Leman where he returned regularly for holidays; the surroundings of Honfleur, his Summer residence from 1909 onwards, as well as many other regions of France ; also Italy which he regularly visited, and Russia where he stayed in 1913.
Félix Vallotton's work is widely diversified, since it comprises more than 200 engravings, innumerable drawings, some 1700 paintings, a few sculptures, as well as writings including three novels, several plays, essays and art criticism. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9lix_Vallotton [Jan 2006]
See also: 1908 - Switzerland - art
Henri Rousseau
The Sleeping Gypsy (1897) - Henri Rousseau (le Douanier) (4 ft 3 in x 6 ft 7 in, Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Henri Rousseau (May 21, 1844 - September 2, 1910) was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naive or Primitive manner. He is also known as Le Douanier ("the customs officer") after his place of employment. Ridiculed during his life, he is now seen as an untaught genius whose works are of the highest artistic quality.
After half a lifetime spent in menial employment, Rousseau took up painting as a hobby and attempted to assume the academic manner of establishment artists such as Bouguereau, but instead created works of charming, stylized fantasy. His ingenuousness was extreme, and he was not aware that establishment artists considered him untutored. In 1908 Picasso gave a banquet, half serious half burlesque, in his honor.
Rousseau is now best known for his jungle scenes, which he claimed were inspired by his non-existent travel in Mexico, but in fact his sources were illustrated books and visits to the zoo and botanical gardens in Paris. His work "The Sleeping Gypsy" (1897), which shows a lion musing over a sleeping man in eerie moonlight, is one of the best-known works of the modern era. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Rousseau [May 2004]
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