It seems to me that the Post Impressionism period was a result of the Impressionism period rather than the Romanticism period. The artists of the Post Impressionism period (Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat and Cezanne) continued to utilize the loose brushwork, the purity of highly saturated colors, and the general liberty the Impressionist period had evoked in artists. The differences were that this set of men started to alter their focus. No longer were they interested in vague forms, where lighting was the main emphasis on the painting. They were more interested in things such as “qualities of line, pattern, form, and color” (Kleiner).
Post Impressionist artist threw out the importance of “naturalism” and the presentation of the different stages of lighting. They were not as concerned with how something was portrayed optically, rather they “sought independent artistic styles for expressing emotions” (Voorhies).
Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/askville/435748_4743345_mywrite/hb_67_187_70a.jpg is an excellent example of a Post Impressionist painting. The focus in this piece is mainly on the form of Van Gogh’s own features. The line in the image, creating the features and details of this self-portrait are used to reflect a movement and depth to the painting. Van Gogh was not only creating depth with his energetic brush strokes but he was also known to squeeze paint from his paint tube directly onto his canvas to create a textile appearance and feel (Kleiner). You notice the colors are not blended together but are individually apparent against one another. Van Gogh was trying to express something other than just a man in a straw hat sitting for his portrait. The lines he uses, the direction in which they travel and the color in which he chose to communicate his message are all working together to send an emotional message in addition to portray himself.
Another painting that is a good example of Post Impressionism is Two Tahitian Woman by Paul Gauguin http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~lxl/personal/images/art/gauguin43.jpg This painting is vivid with color that is highly saturated and most of it pure colors rather than mixed. The muddied black/brown in the background and some of the colors on the woman’s faces seem to be the only exception. This style, unlike Van Gogh’s does not employ the use of lines but does focus on the form of the women. The faces you’ll notice are not the vague blurs of Impressionism, but the defined qualities of a woman’s face. The lines and form in this painting show a great amount of detail in a smooth, softer fashion than Van Gogh’s but in the style of Post Impressionism. Gauguin did not use lines in the same way as Van Gogh but did use them to create details in his art.
Works Cited
Kleiner, Fred S., Mamiya, Christin J. Gardner’s Art Through The Ages A Concise History of Western Art. Ed. Sharon Adams Poore. Belmont: Thomson Higher Education, 2008.
