IMPRESSIONISM,
POST- IMPRESSIONISM, &
EXPRESSIONISM
MR. FREEMAN, MFA
IMPRESSIONISM
• Born in Paris, late 19th Century
• Captures the mood of the environment, exaggerates, blurred
• Spontaneous brush strokes, vibrant colors (usually)
• ACCURATE depiction of the LIGHT in the scene
• ALL ABOUT STYLE/APPROACH rather than subject matter
(could be any typical genre)
• Can be compared to the Dutch Golden Age landscapes and genre
paintings of 17th century
BUT HOW DID WE GET TO
IMPRESSIONISM?
• What invention caused artists,
painters especially, to reconsider
continuing to paint realistically?
What was ”cutting in” on their
business of rendering life?
Key Impressionists artists:
Pierre Renoir
EDGAR DEGAS
Claude Monet
Paul Cezanne
Auguste
Rodin
Camille Claudel
Camille
Pissarro
Van Gogh
IMPRESSIONISM’S BIRTH:
The First Impressionist Exhibition, 1874
- Claude Monet had the idea for a show but Degas
organized the very first Impressionist exhibition
- Artists included Degas, Monet, Renoir, Morisot,
Pissarro, Sisley, Boudin, and even the young
Cézanne—along with many other lesser-known
figures
- They chose to call themselves the Société
Anonyme des Artistes.
Claude Monet
COMMON ASPECTS OF IMPRESSIONISM
- depicts modern life
- rejects established European styles
- embraces new experimental ideas known as “avant
garde” (advanced guard, i.e. on the forefront)
- incorporation of new techniques such as short,
choppy brushstrokes, using pure bright colors.
- New synthetic pigments and ready made paint
solid in tubes (some painted straight from tubes)
-- Interested in painting “plein air”, landscape paintings
ARTISTS WERE UNITED
n 200 years,
ed to trade with west
Woodcut prints by Japanese
masters of the ukiyo-e
tradition, as well as other
exotic objects such as fans
and kimonos, became
easily available in Europe.
The Japanese prints and items had a large
effect on the artwork of many
impressionists as well as postimpressionists.
Japonisme : the Japanese influence on
European art during impressionism
Van Gogh: Japonisme-impressionism
Van Gogh like many other
impressionists and post
impressionists artists was one of
the admirers of Japanese art.
Le Japonaise by Claude Monet
Impression Sunrise
Claude Monet, 1871
”The piece” that gave Impressionism its name
from The Dance Class series
Edgar Degas
Early 1870s
The Saint-Lazare Station
Claude Monet
1877, IMPRESSIONIST
Even Albert Wolff, one of the most conservative art commentators of the day,
gave a back-handed compliment: the painting evoked the “disagreeable
impression of several locomotives whistling all at once.”
Luncheon at the Boating Lake
Pierre Renior
1880
Restaurant de Sirene at Asnieres
View of a River with Rowing Boats
some of Vincent Van Gogh’s
IMPRESSIONISTIC works 1886-7
119. The Burghers of Calais
Auguste Rodin
1885, IMPRESSIONIST
Bronze
The Wave 1987 (left)
La Fortune 1905 (right)
Camille Claudel
Bronze
MARY
CASSATT –
THE BATH,
OIL ON
CANVAS 1893
MARY CASSATT – THE BATH, OIL
ON CANVAS 1893
Cassatt was the only American to exhibit with the
impressionists
She liked depiction of common elements in women´s lives
found among the floating world of Japanese prints.
The elevated viewpoint and simplified color and patterns are
evidence of her respect for the Japanese style.
She did many artworks that depict children being cared for by
their mothers. These reflect new ideas about raising children.
After 1870, French scientists and physicians encouraged mothers
to care for their children themselves and to include regular
bathing to their routine.
The Card Players (1894) and The Bathers
(1890)
Paul Cezzane
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
• Also started in Paris/France, later 19th Century
• Can be considered more like “anti”-impressionism; EMOTIONAL SYMBOLISM
• NOT NATURALISTIC (color, shape, flattened space, rendering, thick lines)
• Post-Impressionist artists were not unified by a single aesthetic approach, but have
one or more of the above features, also wide range of brush strokes
• What brought them together was a shared interest in openly exploring the MIND
of the artist.
• beauty of art is inherently rooted in perception. “Art is an expression and stimulus
to the imaginative life rather than a copy of actual life,” -Roger Fry, 1910 art critic
Key Post-Impressionists artists:
Van Gogh
Paul Gauguin
Georges Seurat
Henri
Matisse
Paul Cezanne
Henri
Rousseau
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism in Western painting, movement in France that represented
both an extension of Impressionism and a rejection of that style’s inherent
limitations. The term Post-Impressionism was coined by the English art critic
Roger Fry for the work of such late 19th-century painters as Paul Cézanne,
Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de ToulouseLautrec, and others.
. Impressionism was based, in its strictest sense, on the objective recording of
nature in terms of the fugitive effects of colour and light. The PostImpressionists rejected this limited aim in favour of more ambitious
expression, admitting their debt, however, to the pure, brilliant colours of
Impressionism, its freedom from traditional subject matter, and its technique
of defining form with short brushstrokes of broken colour. The work of these
painters formed a basis for several contemporary trends and for early 20thcentury modernism.
POST IMPRESSIONISM
Vase of Sunflowers, 1898
131. Goldfish
Henri Matisse
1912
Oil on Canvas
Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande
Jatte (oil on canvas, 1884-1886)
SEURAT
Seurat depicts people from all social classes enjoying a
He created the technique called “pointilism” which uses
tiny dots of color to paint.
His work must be viewed from far away in order for
other colors to blend in together optically. This
technique was based on new ideas about science of color.
120. Starry Night
Vincent van Gogh
1889
Oil on canvas
1877 Impressionist version
(early Cezanne)
125. Mont Sainte-Victoire
Paul Cezanne
1902 (25 yrs later)
Oil on Canvas
123. Where do we come from? Why
are we here? Where are we going?
Paul Gauguin
1897
Oil on Canvas
Sunday on La Grande Jatte by
Georges Seurat (not in the set)
IMPRESSIONISM, 1884
What differences do you notice?
The Dream by Henri Rousseau
POST-IMPRESSIONISM, 1910
EXPRESSIONISM
• Expressionism seeks to embody emotional truth, rather than
physical truth (shows how we feel vs how we actually look)
• The term “Expressionism” extends beyond painting – it is also
applies to literature, music, theatre, dance, and film
• Prominent themes include suffering and awakening (usually
spiritual).
Key Expressionist artists:
Wassily Kandinsky
(Russian)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
(German)
Edvard Munch (“monk”)
The Night Wanderer (self Portrait) 1923
The Scream (1893)
Edvard Munch
Tempera and pastel on cardboard
Der Blaue Rieter (1903)
Murnau, Train and Castle (1909)
Composition VII (1913)
Wassily Kandinsky
Panama Dancers (1910)
Mountain Forest (1918)
Ernst Kirchner
(influenced by African art)
Some call him the “Picasso of Germany”