This document discusses the artistic movements of Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. [1] It describes Neo-Impressionism's key features including pointillism and the works of Georges Seurat like A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. [2] It then covers Post-Impressionism's rejection of limitations of Impressionism through subjective expressionism seen in the works of Van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and others. [3] Two of Van Gogh's paintings, The Sower, are analyzed in terms of their meaning and style.

1. NEO-IMPRESSIONISM
AND
Grand Canal in Venice (1905), Paul Signac
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
Wheatfield with crows (1890), Van Gogh

2. INDEX
• Neo-impressionism
– Main features
– Artists and works of art (Georges Pierre Seurat and Paul Signac)
– A Sunday afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Georges
Seurat
a. Description
b. Style of the painting: Neo-impressionist features
• Post-impressionism
– Main features
– Artists and works of art (Paul Gauguin, Henry de Toulouse-
Lautrec, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne)
– The sower, Vincent Van Gogh
a. Description
b. Meaning
c. Style of the painting: Post-Impressionist features
• Sources

3. Neo-Impressionism: main features
It’s an artistic movement developed
at the end of the 19th century and
headed by Georges Seurat and Paul
Signac, who exhibited their paintings
in 1884 in the Societé des Artistes
Indépendants in Paris. The
beginning of this movement takes
place inside Impressionism, but it
presented a new conception of
colours and lines.
This movement is also known as
Pointillism or Divisionism.
The Eiffel Tower (1889), Georges Seurat

4. • Big importance to volume.
• Forms are conceived in a geometry of pure,
well defined masses (but without contours).
• Order and clarity in paintings.
• Application of the principle of the optic
mixture: hues are divided into pure basic
colours, so that the eye builds them from a
specific distance.
• Use of pointillism: paintings are painted by
using small brushstrokes or points in
different colours to reach the optic mixture.
• The main themes: ports, riverbanks and
circus scenes.
The circus (1890-91)
Georges Seurat
The Circus Sideshow (1887-88)

5. MAIN NEO-IMPRESSIONIST ARTISTS
GEORGES PIERRE SEURAT (FRENCH)
Bathers at Asnières (1884) The channel of gravelines (1890)
Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp (1885)
Gray weather, Grande Jatte (1888)

6. PAUL SIGNAC (FRENCH)
Grand Canal in Venice (1905)
The Papal Palace, Avignon (1900)
Portrait of Felix Feneon (1890) Breakfast (The dining room) (1886-87)

7. A Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grande
Material: oil on canvas.
Present location: Art Institute of
Jatte
Chicago.
A Sunday Afternoon on the island of La
Grande Jatte is a very important work of
art from the French Neo-Impressionist
Georges Pierre Seurat. It is very
mysterious, because it doesn't express
emotions, but workday scenes: people
from Paris enjoying an afternoon at a
park. Seurat was 25 when he painted it
and he spent two years painting it
(1884-1886).
Seurat's canvas includes 3 dogs, 8 boats
and 48 people who congregate on a
Sunday to enjoy nature. There are
modern characters such as soldiers,
boaters, the fashionably and casually
dressed, the old and the young, families,
couples, and single men and women.
He focused on the landscape and the people's shapes. Only the elegance of individuals was important for him.
All the elements are balanced. Although the park is a noisy place (there is a man blowing his bugle, children
running around, dogs, etc.) it transmits an impression of silence. He suggested a sense of timelessness in the
frozen quality of the figures.
People seem to be alone, but not lonely. All the figures coexist in peace. He reaches to represent a beautiful,
sunlit and silent world.

8. STYLE OF THE PAINTING: NEO-IMPRESSIONIST FEATURES
In this masterpiece, Seurat used the technique of
pointillism, which was innovative then. Instead of
traditional brushstrokes, he used a lot of tiny and
contrasting dots which, together, form a unique colour
in the human eye.
Seurat is regarded as the father of the Neo-
impressionist art movement and A Sunday Afternoon
on the Island of La Grande Jatte is considered to be
the beginning of the movement. Although pointillism
was used a lot during this period, the theory of light
and colour and the artistic impression really define the
style.
The use of complementary or contrasting base colours
in tiny proportions mixes the colour on its own. It
reflected better the experience of a real world.
Georges Pierre Seurat

9. Post-Impressionism: main features
Post-Impressionism is a term used to
describe the pictorial styles at the end of
the 19th century and the beginning of the
20th century after Impressionism. It was
introduced by the British critic Roger Fry,
after an exhibition of paintings from Paul
Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van
Gogh that was celebrated in London, in
1910. It involves different personal styles,
presenting them as an extension of
Impressionism and a rejection of its
limitations.
La toilette (1896), Henry de Toulouse-Lautrec

10. • Interest for the construction of the form,
picture and expressiveness of objects and
human figures.
• The bodies of the painting are geometric.
• Use of contrasts to define forms and
planes.
• Use of pure and bright colours with a lot of
emotions.
• Subjective vision of the world in paintings.
• Exotic themes (Gauguin) and low
backgrounds (Toulouse-Lautrec).
• Simplified and static compositions which
look for harmony (Gauguin).
La Goulue (1891)
Henry de Toulouse-Lautrec
Salon at the Rue des Moulins
(1894)

11. MAIN POST-IMPRESSIONIST ARTISTS
PAUL GAUGUIN (FRENCH)
Garden in Vaugirard (1881)
The yellow Christ (1889)
Where do we come from? What we are? Where are we going? (1897)

12. HENRY DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC (FRENCH)
At the Moulin Rouge (1892-95)
Aristide Bruant (1889)
At the circus Fernando (1887-88)

13. VINCENT VAN GOGH (DUTCH)
Bedroom in Arlés (1888)
The Starry Night (1888)
The potato eaters (1885) The red vineyard (1888)

14. PAUL CÉZANNE (FRENCH)
Sainte-Victoire mountain (1885)
Boy in a red waistcoat
(1888-90)
The card players (1890)

15. The sower
•Material: oil on canvas.
•Present location: Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam).
These paintings were painted in Arles in 1888 by Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh painted several
sowers in different compositions, drawing influence from Millet, one of Vincent Van Gogh's
heroes. Millet also painted a painting called The sower.
•DESCRIPTION
On The sower, a modest, calm figure of a man is sowing
the land. The field in which the sower throws new seeds
was painted with touches of blue and yellow. Some
flickers of black represent the birds in the sky and vertical
traces were used for the stalks of grain. In the centre of
the background there is a huge and burning yellow sun in
the sky.
On another Van Gogh’s version of The sower, the figure
of the sower is in the foreground, on the right, next to an
old and big tree with very few leaves. The sun continues
to be big and yellow, but in this case, it’s just behind the
sower.
The sower (1850), Millet’s version

16. • MEANING OF THE PAINTINGS
Van Gogh based the fields on the parable of the Sower in Saint
Matthew’s Gospel, which is about the Last Judgement. God sows the
seeds of the spirit in the soil of humanity and returns on the Last Day to
reap the harvest. That accounts for the grandeur of both paintings.
In the drama, nature becomes more important than people in the
painting. The most important elements are the sun and the ploughed
earth. Van Gogh placed the sun in the middle of the painting as if it had
to be revered. In the second painting, the sun is still more important,
because it looms over the shoulders of the sower and right on the
horizon line, there is a domineering terrible presence.
• STYLE OF THE PAINTINGS
Versions of The sower, Van Gogh Van Gogh showed a personal interpretation of these traditional scenes,
introducing the impressionist style to the countryside, with very electric and
short brushstrokes and the use of a lot of vibrant colours.
It includes brilliant colours. The optical effect of the painting is definitely a
post-impressionist feature. By the standards of Impressionism, those big
yellow suns are childish. For Monet, yellow was a particular wavelength of
visible light. For Van Gogh, colours were filled with meaning. Van Gogh
believed that every colour had its own light. Colour played a role in his
painting almost completely separated from any description of visual
experience. What counted in the paintings was the overall colour effect, not
the particular things in the scenes. He also used perspective in the painting.

17. Sources
• Blanco Carrasco, Cristina and Pérez Fons, Paqui(2011). Social Sciences History 4th Year
ESO, Spain.
• Neoimpresionismo. 2012. Wikipedia. La enciclopedia libre. 17th Apr. 2012.<http://
es.wikipedia.org> http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoimpresionismo
• Neoimpresionismo. Toda Cultura. 3rd April 2012. <http://todacultura.com>
http://todacultura.com/movimientosartisticos/neoimpresionismo.htm
• Seurat, Georges. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Artchive. 3rd Apr.
2012 <http://www.artchive.com> http://www.artchive.com/artchive/S/seurat/jatte.jpg.html
• Totally History. 2011. Totally History. 3rd Apr. 2012. <http://totallyhistory.com>
http://totallyhistory.com/a-sunday-afternoon-on-the-island-of-la-grande-jatte/
• Seurat and the making of La Grande Jatte. 2004. The Art Institute of Chicago. 3rd Apr. 2012.
<http://www.artic.edu/aic/> http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/seurat/seurat_themes.html
• Color theory. 2012. Wikipedia. La enciclopedia libre. 15th Apr. 2012.<http://en.wikipedia.org>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory#Historical_background
• Life of Van Gogh. 2011. Life of Van Gogh. 15th Apr. 2012. <http://www.lifeofvangogh.com>
http://www.lifeofvangogh.com/theSower.html
• Tiempos modernos. 2011. Blogger. 15th Apr. 2012. <http://www.tiempos-modenos.net>
http://www.tiempos-modenos.net/2011/02/el-sembrador-de-van-gogh.html
• Counterlight's Peculiars. 2008. Blogger. 15th Apr. 2012. <http://www.blogger.com>
http://counterlightsrantsandblather1.blogspot.com.es