Chapter 13.2 Post-Impressionism The Impressionist movement had freed artists from traditional...
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Transcript of Chapter 13.2 Post-Impressionism The Impressionist movement had freed artists from traditional...
Chapter 13.2Post-Impressionism
The Impressionist movement had freed artists from traditional techniques and Renaissance concepts of
space and form.Building on this new freedom, Post-Impressionist artists worked in a variety of new, personal styles which influenced future modern art movements.
Georges Seurat’s painting style displayed his obsession with the contemporary scientific analysis of color optics, while utilizing a traditional, solid picture
structure. Cezanne experimented with pictorial structure and shifts in perspective. His innovations
influenced the later Cubist movement. Van Gogh and Gauguin were more involved with the expressive
possibilities of vivid color, and their artwork opened the path for Expressionism and Fauvism.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
Seurat’s work was influenced by scientific color theory of physics. He painted with four basic hues —red,
blue, yellow and green — and related hues carefully applied to the canvas as broken marks and dots of color. From a distance, the viewer’s eyes visually mix these color fragments.
This technique is called pointillism.
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is Seurat’s most famous pointillist work.
This large, carefully planned painting was preceded by many preliminary sketches and several smaller “trial run” color paintings.
Le Grande Jatte was preceded by many preliminary sketches and several smaller “trial run”
color paintings.
Le Grande Jatte was preceded by many preliminary sketches and several smaller
“trial run” color paintings.
This small oil painting is typical of Seurat’s spontaneous color sketches and studies. The studies tend to have a
more natural feeling than the larger, formally planned out works.
Bathers at Asnieres, oil on canvas, 79” x 118” 1884Although this painting included Impressionist concerns
regarding atmospheric perspective and the color of light, it also contains a monumental sense of form which is
classically derived.
This large work was carefully planned out, as evidenced by Seurat’s delicate preparatory
drawings — which have their own stand-alone
beauty.Notice how the artist used the grain of the drawing paper to achieve a visual
texture which simulated his painting technique.
The Side Show, oil on canvas, 1888, 40” x 59”This subject is rendered in artificial light instead of daylight. The
strict construction of verticals and horizontals makes clear Seurat’s concern with the architecture of his pictures. It is a very deliberate,
methodical, unemotional presentation.
Notice the loose, more painterly feeling of the color study made in advance of the formal
“finished” work.
Seurat’s meticulous sense
of rigorous pictorial balance and rhythmic,
geometrical design was
influenced by Renaissance
artists such as Piero della
Francesca, seen above.