Claude Monet
Impression: Sunrise
1872
Oil on canvas, 48 x 63cm
Works by the Impressionists
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
• Term coined by the British artist and art
critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the
development of French art after
Impressionism
• The term was used when Fry organized
the 1910 exhibition -- Manet and PostImpressionism
Post-Impressionism
• Created works during the
1880s in Paris, France
• 4 Key Post-Impressionists:
–
–
–
–
Paul Cezanne
Paul Gauguin
Vincent Van Gogh
Georges Seurat
The Post-Impressionists
• Started off painting in the
Impressionist style but later
developed their own highly
personal style.
• The Post-Impressionists rejected
the Impressionists aim of capturing
fleeting moments in favour of
more ambitious expression.
IMPRESSIONISM
- Depict momentary sensation of light
& colour
- Use of a bright palette.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
Move beyond the visual/perceptual
experience.
- Van Gogh & Gauguin
~ Emphasis on feelings/emotions
- Cezanne & Seurat
~ Emphasis on form (3D
volume) & structure
Father of Modern Art
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
Pablo Picasso
Still Life with a Bottle of
Rum
1911
The experiments by
Cezanne paved the
foundation for the
works of Picasso.
PAUL CEZANNE
Mt St Victoire
1895
Oil on canvas
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Mt St. Victoire with the Great Pine
1885 - 87
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
- Captured the timeless beauty of Mont St.
Victoire
- Best remembered for his still-lifes and
landscape paintings.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
• Beginnings / Early works:
- Thickly painted
~ Paint was laid on with unskillful vigour with a palette knife
~ Crude appearance with heavy impasto & dark colour
- Dominant use of dark colours
~ Black, white, tans, greys, occasion touches of brilliant colour
~ Strong contrasts of black & white.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Portrait of the Artist’s Father
1866
Early Works
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
The Black
Clock
1869 - 71
Early Works
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
• 1870 - 71:
- Preoccupied with
landscape painting
Landscape
1870 -71
Early Works
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
• 1872 -- First encounters with
Impressionism:
- Under the influence of Camille
Pissarro:
~ Started painting outdoors
~ Stopped using palette knife
Camille Pissarro
The Orchard
1872
~ Juxtaposed bright colours &
avoided black
~ Created a complex mosaic of
delicately balanced touches of colour
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Landscape at
Auvers
1873
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
House of the Hanged Man
1873
- Blocks of form solidly defined
and kept in balance by
arrangement of horizontals,
verticals & diagonals
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
• Lessons Cezanne learnt from Impressionism:
- Use of brushstrokes as a constructive tool to model
volume
- Interplay of colours
* Evolved to study the relationship between colours, tones
& forms
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
• Reactions to Impressionism:
• Searched for underlying
structure instead of mere
depiction of light and outward
surfaces
• Avoided depictions of modern
life; painted landscapes and still
life of more classical conception
• Looked for inspiration from
Old Masters, such as Poussin
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Mt St. Victoire with
the Great Pine
1885 - 87
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
- Mountain = An integral
part of the landscape.
Mt St. Victoire with the Great Pine
1885 - 87
- Landscape is framed by
the trunk & branches of
the pine tree
- Removed any
distractions of the
painting
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
- Modelled volumes &
thrust them out into
space as though he was
chiselling them from rock.
Mt St Victoire
* Retained the
volume of
objects & the
firmly
constructed
space which he
admired in the
art of the past.
1885 - 87
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Mt St Victoire Seen from
Bibemus
1898 - 1900
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Mt St Victoire
1900
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Mont St Victoire
1902 -6
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Mt St Victoire,
Seen from Les
Lauves
1904 - 06
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
• Mt St. Victoire:
- Built up pictorial structure by the schematic overlay of
colours applied in short, square strokes of the brush
- Worked at creating a permanence in the sense of
timelessness that also embraces solidity & flux, order &
flexibility
- Aimed to take the contemporary aspects out of his
subject and make them appear permanent and eternal
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
• Development of Cezanne’s brushwork:
Characteristic Style: Method of fine, long parallel
strokes, applied in layer upon layer of transparent colour
- Developed his characteristic colour patches through
range of colour and direction of brushwork
- Represented the rich diversity of planes and
movements in space without losing any brilliance of
colour & its reflection
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Self-Portrait with Rose Background
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Madam Cezanne in Red
Armchair
1877
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Boy in a Red Waist Coat
1890 - 95
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
•1880s - 1890s: Portraits & Figures
- Impersonal / detachment from the sitter
“To make a universal kind of painting, painting in
which form itself is the real subject.”
- Worked & reworked, structured & restructured his pictures
laboriously.
~ Right balance of form and colour
- Lacked life-like spontaneity but make up for this lack in their
exquisite sense of order and harmony.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Still-life with Fruit Basket
1890
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Still-life with
Apples &
Oranges
1890 -1900
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Basket of Apples
1890 - 1894
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
• Still-Lifes:
- Ideal subject for working slowly
- Fruits = Products of nature; Jars = Sense of craftsmanship
- Focus on shapes of objects & interference of their presence
to one another
~ Fruits lost sensual appearance
~ Instead they are arranged in order of occurrence of
size & colours in specific sense of order & spatial
relationships
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
The Card Players
1890 - 95
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
The Card Players
1890 - 92
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
• Bathers:
- Attempt at an idealised unity between man and nature
in the tradition of Old Masters
- Painted in the studio
- Figures were based on studies of models / sculptures
copied in the Louvre
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
- Female bathers form
triangular groups framed by
inward slanting trees, which
suggest a compact design
The Large Bathers
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
- Painted landscapes / still-lifes of more classical conceptions
- Search for fundamental truths & inherent structure in nature
~ Led to unprecedented degree of abstraction
- Tight & complex compositions
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
Purpose of colour:
-For structural purposes
- e.g.
~ perspective, light / shade, depth / distance,
shape / solidity
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
• Way of working:
-Intense observation over a long period of time
- Explored properties of lines, planes, colours & their interrelationships
~ e.g.
- Effect of linear direction; capacity of planes to
create sensation of depth; intrinsic qualities of
colour; power of colour to modify the direction and
depth of lines & planes
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE
1839 - 1906
* Cezanne = The great structuralist
among the Post-Impressionists.
“Treat nature by the cylinder, the
sphere, and the cone.”
- Such comments about ‘structuring’
nature would give direction to the
originators of Cubism in the 20th
century.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM