Effect Of Postimpressionists On The Next Generation Essay

Postimpressionism Postimpressionism was a movement in late-19th-century French painting that emphasized the artists personal response to a subject. Postimpressionism takes its name from an art movement that immediately preceded it: Impressionism. But whereas impressionist painters concentrated on the depiction of a subjects immediate appearance, postimpressionists focused on emotional or spiritual meanings that the subject might convey. Although impressionist artists interpreted what they saw, their approach nevertheless remained rooted in observation of the natural world. Postimpressionists conveyed their personal responses to the world around them through the use of strong, unnatural colors and exaggeration or slight distortion of†¦show more content†¦The unnaturally blocky forms of the bathers bodies conform to the angularity of the trees that frame them. To unify different parts of the composition, he used shades of green, brown, and blue interchangeably in the depiction of sky, earth, fl esh, and foliage. The unfinished quality of Cà ©zannes paintings and his choppy, unblended brushstrokes convey the immediacy of his personal experience. His technique appealed strongly to other postimpressionists seeking ways to evoke emotional responses in viewers. Seurat and van Gogh also drew their subjects from the world around them; Seurat concentrated primarily on the urban life of Paris, while van Gogh focused on rural scenes. The symbolist movement, a literary movement that stressed the expression of the artist’s inner vision as the purpose of art, influenced both artists, along with Van Gogh’s friend Paul Gauguin. While in Paris in 1886, Vincent van Gogh experimented briefly with neoimpressionism, but found its techniques too restrictive. Instead, he used broader brush strokes and incorporated large zones of single colors into his compositions. A former preacher, van Gogh gave his paintings a spiritual charge through technique, subject matter, and color. The thick, energetic brushstrokes in Crows in the Wheatfields (1890), which he painted just two and a half weeks before his suicide, suggest turbulence. Dark birds hover in a brilliant blue sky