IMPRESSIONISM (1870s1880s)
1. Captured a moment in time, slice of
life
2. Interested in fleeting effects of light
on color
3. Used short, choppy brushstrokes to
capture a moment
4. Avoided use of black
5. Cropped at edges to imitate
photography
6. Depicted leisure activities of Parisian
bourgeoisie
7. Influenced by Japanese woodblock
prints
8. Criticized by traditional academic
painters
Monet
series of paintings showing a
subject at various times
Renoir
portraits and slices of French life
Pissarro
cityscapes capture bourgeois life
Degas
dancers, horse races and portraits
Lautrec
garish colors, elevates the status of
poster art
Cassatt
American Impressionist, mentored
by Degas
CLAUDE MONET, Saint-Lazare Train Station, 1877. Oil
on canvas
MARY CASSATT, The Bath, ca. 1892. Oil on canvas,
HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, At the Moulin
Rouge, 1892–1895
EDGAR DEGAS, Ballet Rehearsal, 1874. Oil on canvas,
POST-IMPRESSIONISM1890s
Influenced by, but dissatisfied with
Impressionism
Impressionists were too tied to natural
world--only painted what they saw
Wanted to restore line and solid colors
Seurat
•Pioneer of pointillism or divisionism
•Theory of optical mixing based on work of
Chevreul
•Most famous work-A Sunday on the Grande
Jatte
Paul Gauguin
•Rejected artistic traditions of Western
civilization
•Influenced by "primitive" cultures-Tahiti
•Used flat planes of color to express feelings
Vincent Van Gogh
•Used color and brush strokes to express
his feelings
•Color reflects moods-for example, yellow
is happy
•Influenced the Expressionists
Paul Cezanne
•Capture the underlying structure of
objects and nature
•Restore formal elements: the use of
color and shape
•Series of paintings of Mont SainteVictoire
VINCENT VAN GOGH, The Night Café,
1888. Oil on canvas
PAUL CÉZANNE, The Basket of Apples, ca.
1895. Oil on canvas,
PAUL GAUGUIN, Where Do We Come From?
What Are We? Where Are We Going?, 1897.
Oil on canvas
GEORGES SEURAT, A Sunday Afternoon at La
Grande Jatte, 1884-1886. Oil on canvas, 6’ 9”x10’.
Art Institute of Chicago