23. post impressionism, symbolism and art nouveau

1. 1

2. Camille Claudel. Ripe
Age. ñ. 1907. Bronze, 87.6 x 21.9 c
m. Musee d'Orsay, Paris
2

3. Post-Impressionism,
Symbolism and Art
Nouveau

4. Who are “Post-Impressionists”
• A movement that evolves from a previous
one is hard to identify
• Refers broadly to all artists working in the
1880’s and 1890’s (which would include
many Impressionist painters as well,
including Monet, Manet, and Rodin)
• Generally, Post-Impressionists rejects the
limitations of impressionism by
1. emphasizing geometric forms
2. unnatural/arbitrary colour
3. distortion of forms for expressive effect

5. A Myriad of Directions
• As Impressionism mainstreams, artists
seek their own philosophies of Aesthetic
and Process
1. Georges Seurat
– Pointilism, or the systematic use of tiny
dots
2. Paul Cezanne
– Restoring order and structure to painting
3. Camille Pissarro
– Neo-Impressionist, but reverts back to
Impressionism
4. Vincent van Gogh
– Colour and vibrant swirling brush
strokes conveying feelings, moods and
current state of mind

6. Paul Cezanne, 1839-1906
• Born to a retailer and his mistress
– Not married until Paul is five, causing
childhood stigma
• Attends Bourben College in Aix, meeting
Emile Zola at 13.
– Drawing at local academy
– Emile moves to Paris, fills Paul with the
same desire
• Initial work is black and morbid
– Often focuses on his mistress
– Slowly changes technique to focus on
landscape
– Aristotelian emphasis on geometric shapes
• “I want to make Impressionism solid and
durable, like the paintings in the
museum”

8. Still Life. c. 1890. Oil on canvas. Barnes
Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia,
PA, USA.

9. Card Players. 1890-1892. Oil on canvas. Barnes
Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia,
PA, USA.

10. Landscape at Aix (Mount Sainte-
Victoire). 1905. Oil on canvas. 1879-
82. The Pushkin Museum of Fine
Art, Moscow, Russia.

11. Big Bathers. 1900-1905. Oil on
canvas. Barnes Foundation, Lincoln
University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

12. Compare and Contrast
Compare and Contrast the aesthetic principles behind these two landscapes.
Identify the artist.

13. Georges Seurat, 1859-1891
• Born to a property owner in
Paris
– Father would spend most of his
time in the garden
– Often had private communion
with his gardener
• Studied in Ecole des Beaux-Arts
(ultra-academic), 1878
• Focusing on the optical theory
of pointillism
– Is rejecting by the Salon in 1884
– Optical theory on the division of
color

14. Pierrot with a White Pipe. (Aman-Jean) 1883.
Oil on canvas. Private collection.

15. Bathers at Asnières. 1883-84. Oil on canvas.
National Gallery, London,

16. Study for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. 1884.
Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, USA.

17. Le Chahut. 1889-90. Oil on
canvas. Rijksmuseum Kröller-
Müller, Otterlo, the Netherlands.

18. The Circus. Detail. 1890-91. Oil on
canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France.

20. Self-portrait in the crowd, At the Moulin
Rouge, Art Institute of Chicago

21. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-
1901
• Aristocratic family of Comtes
(Northern France)
– Fractured both his legs at 14 (did not
heal properly)
– Stopped growing at 4’6’’
– Parents were first cousins
• Lived as a bohemian lifestyle in
Monmartre bordels
– Often befriended the prostitutes and
were his muse
• He was famous for
– capturing people in their working
environment
– capturing crowd scenes in which
the figures are highly
individualized.
• “I paint things as they are. I
don't comment”

22. Self-portrait in the crowd, At the Moulin
Rouge, Art Institute of Chicago

23. Self-portrait in the crowd, At the Moulin
Rouge, Art Institute of Chicago

24. Moulin Rouge – La Goulue (1891) Avril (Jane Avril) (1893)

25. In Bed (1893)

28. Vincent
van
Gogh

29. Vincent Van Gogh, 1853-1890
• Born to a minister in the Dutch
Reformed Church in southern
Netherlands
– Serious child, “My youth was
gloomy and cold and sterile
• 1869, worked as art deal in The
Hague
– Successful by age 20
– Wanted to get married but was
rejected
• 1876, terminated due to lack of
interest
– Believed art was being treated as a
commodity

30. The Potato Eaters, 1885, Van Gogh Museum

32. Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette,
1885–1886, oil on canvas, Van Gogh
Museum

33. Van Gogh: The Artist
• Nuenen(1883-1884)
– Painting simple subjects in dark tones
(birds’ nests, weavers, cottages)
– Fell in love…she tried to kill herself
– Potato Eaters (1885) first exhibited
work in The Hague
• Antwerp (1885-6)
– Influenced by Rubens to broaden
pallete to include earth tones and
green
– Bought Ukiyo-e woodcuts

34. Courtesan (after Eisen), 1887,
Van Gogh Museum

35. The Blooming Plumtree (after
Hiroshige), 1887, Van Gogh
Museum
Just think of that; isn’t
it almost a new religion
that these Japanese
teach us, who are so
simple and live in nature
as if they themselves
were flowers?”
And we wouldn’t be able
to study Japanese art, it
seems to me, without
becoming much happier
and more cheerful, and
it makes us return to
nature, despite our
education and our work
in a world of convention.

36. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,
Portrait of Vincent van Gogh,
1887, pastel drawing, Van Gogh
Museum.

37. Van Gogh: French Artist
• Paris (1886-1888)
– Moved in with brother Theo
– Influenced by impressionists
– Kicked out by Theo
• Move to Arles (1888-1889)
– Ill from malnutrition
– Wanted to found a utopian art colony
– Interactions with Gauguin that were “Cut
short” (Punny)
• Saint-Remy (1889-1890)
– Mental hospital
– Painted Starry Night
– Exteriors scenes and garden
• Shoots himself in the chest

38. The Yellow House, 1888,
Van Gogh Museum

39. Bedroom in Arles, 1888,
Van Gogh Museum

41. The Café Terrace on the
Place du Forum, Arles, at
Night, September 1888,
Kröller-Müller Museum,
Otterlo, The Netherlands

46. The Starry Night, June
1889, The Museum of
Modern Art, New York

48. The Sower, 1888, Kröller-Müller
Museum

49. Starry Night Over the Rhone,
1888, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

50. Sorrowing Old Man ('At
Eternity's Gate'), 1890,
Kröller-Müller Museum,
Otterlo

51. Self-Portrait, September
1889, (F 627), Oil on
canvas, 65 cm × 54 cm.
Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

52. Road with Cypress and Star,
May 1890, Kröller-Müller
Museum.

53. Symbolism
• Reaction to Romanticism and
influenced by Edgar Allan Poe
• Went in three directions
1. Emphasis on pre-Renaissance forms
complimenting intensity of meta-
rational faith
2. Reaction against decadent
materialism and commercialism in
favor of hermetic labyrinths of the
mind
3. Reaction against western cultural
ideals/mythos in favor of
“primitivism” (expansion of the
Romantic “noble savage”
La mort du fossoyeur ("The death of the
gravedigger") by Carlos Schwabe

54. Paul Gauguin, 1848-03
• Initially a successful stockbroker
in Paris
– Begins collecting paintings
– Abandons job entirely at 35 to
pursue art
• Believed modern Parisian life
was “spiritually bankrupt” in its
modern distractions
• Started the Pont-Aven
style/school outside of Paris
– Devoted to rural images with
expressively flat, byzantinesque
compositions
– Will later travel to Tahiti in search
of Eden

55. Still-Life with Fruit and
Lemons, c. (1880)

56. Vision After the Sermon (Jacob
wrestling with the angel),
(1888)

57. The Yellow Christ (Le Christ
jaune), 1889, Albright-Knox
Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY

58. Where Do We Come From? What Are We?
Where Are We Going?, 1897, Boston Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA

59. Spirit of the Dead Watching
1892, Albright-Knox Art
Gallery, Buffalo, NY

60. Edvard Munch, 1863-44
• My father was temperamentally nervous and obsessively
religious—to the point of psychoneurosis. From him I
inherited the seeds of madness. The angels of fear, sorrow,
and death stood by my side since the day I was born.
• Early life wrought with poverty
• 1879, enrolled in a technical
college to study engineering
• Moved from Norway to Paris
(1889)
– Influenced by Gauguin, van
Gogh, Lautrec (color=emotion)
• “in my art I attempt to explain
life and its meaning to myself.”

61. The Scream. 1893. Oil,
tempera, and pastel on
cardboard.
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

62. The Sick Child (1885-87). Tate Gallery, London.

63. Vampire. 1893-94. Oil on canvas.
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

64. Death of Marat I (1907)

66. Madonna. 1894–95. Oil
on canvas. 36 × 28 in.
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

67. Puberty, 1894-5, Oil on
canvas 151.5cmx110 cm,
National Gallery, Oslo