25. Post Impressionism, Neo Impressionism & Pointillism: Was it any different? (1886-1905)
What was it about? What were the goals?
Post Impressionism is considered more a period of time (from 1886-1905) and change, than a proper movement. It encompasses several smaller movements such as Neo-Impressionism, Pointillism, Symbolism and others. As you’ll see later, most of these “movements” are just different names for the same styles and artists.
It’s also worth noting, some art historians refuse to use the term “Post Impressionist”, insisting on calling these artists Impressionists, although you’ll see differences. One reason for this – all the Post-Impressionists developed their styles in the 1880’s and ’90’s, while the Impressionists were still painting and exhibiting, and all these artists showed their works together - they either considered themselves Impressionists or close enough.
The English artist, Roger Fry, first coined the term Post-Impressionist in 1906 as a way to tie all these little movements together. In his own words, “For purposes of convenience, it was necessary to give these artists a name, and I chose, as being the vaguest and most non-committal, the name of Post-Impressionism. This merely stated their position in time relatively to the Impressionist movement.” In other words, these artists were part of a new, younger generation.
So, it’s not clear there were any common goals among these artists, except to make beauty. For the most part, they continued the Impressionist tradition, evolving it in various ways as they experimented. Seurat developed Pointillism. Cezanne emphasized the structure of his subjects, to make them more “solid and durable, like the art of museums.” Van Gogh explored the expressive qualities of his swirly, staccato brush strokes. These artists tended to be solitary, unique, and uninterested in forming any specific school of art.
A bit of historical context:
So, Post Impressionism is said to have begun in 1886 because that was the year of the last Impressionist exhibition (in Paris). In that show, Seurat displayed his pointillist painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, causing critics to coin the term “Neo-Impressionism.”
Post Impressionism is said to have ended with the rise of Fauvism, although some critics include Fauvism and other forms of modern art under the label Post Impressionist.
What’s Pointillism?
Also called Neo-Impressionism, this was the technique of dabbing thousands of tiny dots of different colors close together, and letting them mix optically, meaning that they would seem to blend and mix, when seen from a distance:
You can go up close and see the individual dots, or you can step back and create the illusion of a more realistic picture. (Fun fact, photography works the same way. Take a magnifying lens to any photo, and you’ll see a random collection of multi-colored dots.)
What’s Cloissonism?
This style imitated a type of jewelry making using enamel glass (first developed in Byzantine Art). There were large, flat, colorful shapes with dark outlines separating them. The term was used to describe the works of Emile Bernard, Louis Anquetin and Paul Gauguin.
Cloissonism was also called Synthetism. The idea was they were “synthesizing” or combining three concepts of a subject:
1. the outward appearance of the subject.
2. the artist’s personal feelings about the subject (a precursor of Expressionism).
3. aesthetic principles.
What was the Pont-Avon School?
This was simply a group of artists working at the town of Pont-Avon in France, in the early 1890’s. Guess which artists? Emile Bernard, Paul Gauguin, Paul Serusier, and others. So, the Pont-Avon school is, naturally, associated with Cloissonism.
What’s Intimism?
This had nothing to do with style, and was a name given to artists who painted intimate, everyday scenes of people in their homes. This covers mostly Bonnard and Vuillard, but also Vallotton, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Degas.
What’s Symbolism?
There’s a separate lesson on this, that you can read here.
What's up with Van Gogh? Why'd he cut off his ear?
Van Gogh was unwell. There's a great biographical documentary by Waldemar Januszczak who explains in detail Van Gogh's life and his dreams - which were not, it turns out, to be a painter. Van Gogh desperately wanted to become a Dutch-Reformed minister like his father. He was rejected from the seminary, and spent the rest of his short life jumping from place to place, trying to find other work. Although good at drawing from a young age, he didn't try to paint professionally, until the last five years of his life, starting in 1885. In just five years, his artistic style, skill, and voice increased dramatically, but it wasn't enough for him. Van Gogh was an extremely sensitive person, subject to fits of depression and anger. There's no consensus on his exact diagnosis, but he was apparently very difficult to live with and needy, and his stormy relationships compounded his general feelings of failure, I would say, more so than his difficulty in gaining fame as an artist.
Van Gogh was supported by his brother Theo, both morally and financially. Theo was a successful art dealer. He and Vincent were quite close, to the extent that Vincent became, at times, jealous of the time Theo spent with his wife and children, and away from him. Theo tried to help Vincent's career by paying the rent for a charming yellow home in Arles, where Vincent could stay with the reputable painter, Paul Gauguin. The hope was Gauguin would help teach and guide Van Gogh, and help get him attention in the necessary artistic circles.
It was a great idea, but it didn't work. Gauguin was the wrong choice. For one thing, he hated the color yellow. Not only was the house yellow, Van Gogh had filled it with his yellow sun flower paintings:
Gauguin was not a fan, and this crushed Vincent's ego. Adding to this frustration, Gauguin was comparatively much more confident and appealing to the ladies, so when they went out to bars together, Paul was much more successful. This led to arguments and, eventually Gauguin had had enough, and moved to a hotel. Vincent went out to a brothel where one young lady expressed her disinterest. And so, Vincent decided he was a total failure, Gauguin was the superior artist and man, and so he cut his ear off.
Wait, what?
Yes, he cut his ear off, then placed it in a box, wrapped it, and delivered it as a "gift" to the woman who had rejected him. It was an insane thing to do. It seems, the reason he chose to do this had to do with the common practice in Arles, at the time, for bull fighters to cut off the ear of a bull, after having vanquished it in the ring. Van Gogh was declaring himself the loser and punishing himself, while (however bitterly) congratulating the victors. It was a stupid stunt, and it almost killed Van Gogh from the blood loss. Luckily, a doctor was called, and saved Vincent's life.
Van Gogh was then sent to St. Paul-de-Mausole Asylum for a time to "get well". Following this, he moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, under the watchful care of Dr. Gachet. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. A year later, just after finishing a last painting, young Vincent shot himself in the head. Even in this he failed, for he woke up some time later, walked back down to his hotel room, and lay quite sick in bed for days before finally passing. It was enough time for his lamenting brother Theo to visit him one last time.
Was Van Gogh Over-Rated?
Considering the attention he's given today, the many films and retrospectives, it's a lot for someone who only painted for five years - and many of his works feel the same: flat and repetitive. We have to remember, this was his development period, after which he would have gone on to incredible heights, had he not hated himself and ended his life. Van Gogh was prolific, painting almost constantly, and in just five years, he produced hundreds of works. Museums and books only ever show you the best of them, and there are many masterpieces. But, like with all artists, there were also many studies and mediocre results, and because it's Van Gogh, collectors and speculators have greedily collected every scrap of it. So, you may see something in a museum and think, what's the big deal? I would say, Van Gogh isn't so much over-rated as Vuillard is under-rated. He was to my mind, a superior painter of the same period, who lived a long, quiet, artist's life, was more sophisticated stylistically, was revered in his life time, and whom no one seems to notice or care about today.
Artist Stapleton Kearns attribute's Van Gogh's notoriety today thusly:
"I think it is interesting to notice, that which each era has mistaken for art. In the 60's art was often confused with psychology. Psychology was huge at that time. Dr. Leary, above was taken very seriously because he was a scientist! Others might have opinions, but psychologists brought data, their opinions outclassed those of lesser shamans. In the dark ages when you were supposed to shut up and listen, the bureaucrats cried "God says!" By the sixties they cried "Studies show!"
Psychology today was a major magazine, Freud was still in power and Jung had a best selling coffee table book at the end of that decade. When you went to the museum, people stood in front of the paintings and talked not about how the paintings looked, or what period they were from. They talked about their feelings, how the paintings made them feel and the psychology of that artist. People didn't know enough about art to talk about it, but they did know, or at least thought they knew, how to talk about psychology. They mistook art for Psychology. In fact the idea was that if you knew pop psychology that was all that was necessary to unlock the mysteries of art. You still meet people who think that today.
The art that was most preferred in the 60's was that which lent itself to that treatment. A tortured artist was good for projecting psychological diagnosis's onto. Irving Stones popular biography of Van Gogh gave people something to talk about. He was perhaps the most valued artist of that time. He is still held in very high regard, but I think he was more so in the 60's. He was played by Kirk Douglas in the movie."
Was Paul Gauguin a jerk?
to be answered later...
How was Post-Impressionism represented in the other arts – music, architecture, and literature?
It wasn’t. It was exclusive to visual art, mainly painting.
Was it great?
Absolutely. Well, maybe not all of it, but this was a time of experimentation that brought many beautiful works to light. All these artists helped redefine beauty for the modern world.
Some leading figures:
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
Paul Signac (1863-1935)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)
Felix Vallotton (1865-1925)
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)
Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940)
Jean Metzinger (1883-1956) (labelled Fauvist, but he’s not really)
Zinaida Serebryakova (1884-1967)
Some of the most famous artworks of the time:
Long considered Van Gogh's last painting, this has now been questioned by experts.
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