Post Impressionism: New symbols and expressions.

Post-Impressionism


Post-Impressionism was a movement in Western painting based in France at the end of the 19th Century. It represented both an extension of Impressionism and a rejection of that style's inherent limitations. The Post-Impressionists were dissatisfied with the triviality of subject matter and the loss of structure in Impressionist paintings, though they did not agree on the way forward.

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 Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. All of these painters except van Gogh were French, and most of them began as Impressionists; each of them abandoned the style, however, to form his own highly personal art. Impressionism was based, in its strictest sense, on the objective recording of nature in terms of the fugitive effects of colour and light. The Post-Impressionists 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 20th-century modernism.
 Georges Seurat and his followers concerned themselves with Pointillism, the systematic use of tiny dots of colour. Paul Cézanne set out to restore a sense of order and structure to painting, to "make of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the museums". He achieved this by reducing objects to their basic shapes while retaining the bright fresh colours of Impressionism. Vincent van Gogh used colour and vibrant swirling brush strokes to convey his feelings and his state of mind. Although they often exhibited together, Post-Impressionist artists were not in agreement concerning a cohesive movement.
 

The Post-Impressionists often exhibited together, but, unlike the Impressionists, who began as a close-knit, convivial group, they painted mainly alone and although they often exhibited together, Post-Impressionist artists were not in agreement concerning a cohesive movement. Cézanne painted in isolation at Aix-en-Provence in southern France; his solitude was matched by that of Paul Gauguin, who in 1891 took up residence in Tahiti, and of van Gogh, who painted in the countryside at Arles. Both Gauguin and van Gogh rejected the indifferent objectivity of Impressionism in favour of a more personal, spiritual expression. After exhibiting with the Impressionists in 1886, Gauguin renounced “the abominable error of naturalism.” Gauguin sought a simpler truth and purer aesthetic in art; turning away from the sophisticated, urban art world of Paris, he instead looked for inspiration in rural communities with more traditional values. Copying the pure, flat colour, heavy outline, and decorative quality of medieval stained glass and manuscript illumination, he explored the expressive potential of pure colour and line, using exotic and sensuous colour harmonies to create poetic images of the Tahitians among whom he would eventually live. Arriving in Paris in 1886, the Dutch painter van Gogh quickly adapted Impressionist techniques and colour to express his acutely felt emotions. He transformed the contrasting short brushstrokes of Impressionism into curving, vibrant lines of colour, exaggerated even beyond Impressionist brilliance, that convey his emotionally charged and ecstatic responses to the natural landscape.

Symbolism

Symbolism was a movement in art and literature, which originated in France and flourished between 1885 and 1910. It was a reaction against the literal representation of objects and subjects. Symbolist painters rejected realism and Impressionism. They felt that art should not simply depict, but should suggest ideas, moods, and psychological states through colour, line, and form. Their subjects were often mythological, mystical, or fantastic. Not so much a style of art, Symbolism was more an international ideological trend. Symbolists believed that art should apprehend more absolute truths which could only be accessed indirectly.

French Symbolism was both a continuation of the Romantic tradition and a reaction to the realistic approach of impressionism. It served as a catalyst in the outgrowth of the darker sides of Romanticism and toward abstraction. The term Symbolism means the systematic use of symbols or pictorial conventions to express an allegorical meaning. Symbolism is an important element of most religious arts and reading symbols plays a main role in psychoanalysis. Thus, the Symbolist painters used these symbols from mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul.

Symbolic artists based their ideas on literature, where poets such as Baudelaire believed that ideas and emotions could be portrayed through sound and rhythm and not just through the meaning of words. Symbolist painter styles varied greatly but common themes included the mystical and the visionary. Symbolists also explored themes of death, debauchery, perversion and eroticism. Symbolism moved away from the naturalism of the impressionists and demonstrated a preference for emotions over intellect.

Symbolism had a significant influence on Expressionism and Surrealism, two movements which descend directly from Symbolism proper. The work of some Symbolist visual artists also directly impacted the curvilinear forms of the contemporary Art Nouveau movement. The Symbolist period contributed much to the development of the abstract arts of the 20th century, and is a crucial step in understanding consecutive periods. Famous Symbolist artists include Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon and Gustav Klimt.

Expressionism

Expressionism is a term used to denote the use of distortion and exaggeration for emotional effect, which first surfaced in the art and literature of the late nineteeth and early twentieth centurys. It initially developed as an 'avant-gard movement' in Germany, but quickly spread beyond, going on become more of an international climate of thought than an art movement per se. It affected not just the fine arts but also dance, cinema, literature and theatre.

Unlike Impressionism, its goals were not to reproduce the impression suggested by the surrounding world, but to strongly impose the artist's own sensibility to the world's representation. Expressionist artists sought to express the meaning of "being alive" and emotional experience rather than physical reality. Therefore, the expressionist artist substitutes to the visual object reality his own image of this object, which he feels as an accurate representation of its real meaning. The search of harmony and forms is not as important as trying to achieve the highest expression intensity.

Expressionists were opposed to the academic standards that had prevailed in Europe and instead sought to emphasize the artist's own unique subjective emotional point of view, which they believed must override the importance of being faithful to the actual appearance of things.

The subjects of expressionist works were frequently distorted or otherwise altered in some way. Hallmarks of the movement were violent colors and exaggerated lines that served to contain the intense emotional expression. Expressionist were trying to pinpoint an expression of inner experience rather than solely create a realistic portrayal of something, seeking to depict not objective reality but the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events aroused in them.

The expressionistic tradition was significantly indebted to a series of paintings by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh dating from the last year and a half of his life. These recorded his heightened emotional state shortly before his suicide. One of the earliest and most famous examples of Expressionism is Gogh's "The Starry Night." Whatever the cause, it cannot be denied that a great many artists of this period assumed that the chief function of art was to express their intense feelings to the world.

The German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche played a key role in originating modern expressionism by clarifying and serving as a conduit for previously neglected currents in ancient art. In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche presented his theory of the ancient dualism between two types of aesthetic experience, namely the Apollonian and the Dionysian; a dualism between the "art of sculpture", of lyrical dream-inspiration, identity, order, regularity, and calm repose, and, on the other hand, the "art of music", of intoxication, forgetfulness, chaos, and the ecstatic dissolution of identity in the collective. According to Nietzsche, both elements are present in any work of art. The basic characteristics of expressionism are Dionysian: bold colours, distorted forms-in-dissolution, two-dimensional, without much use of perspective. More generally the term refers to art that expresses intense emotion. It is arguable that all artists are expressive but there is a long line of art production in which heavy emphasis is placed on communication through emotion.