Art Movements 101: Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

Some of the most easily recognizable artworks come from the impressionist and post-impressionist movement, including the works of Degas, Van Gogh, and Monet. It is considered by experts to be the beginning of modern art (even though the movement began in the 1850s). 

Originating in Paris, Impressionism is characterized by bright, sometimes saturated colours and loose brushstrokes. It has its roots in the message of Realism, refusing to depict the images of monarchs and religious figures that was popular at the time, and instead bringing to life new images of everyday life, cafes, nature, and the human figure absent of traditional academic style. Due to his experimenting with lighter colours and different brushstrokes, Manet is credited with beginning the Impressionist movement. 

Impressionism started as a group of painters gathering in a Parisian café who shared a passion for art and a disdain for traditional fine arts, but not yet a style. The group included: Degas, Renoir, Pisarro, Manet, Cezanne, and Mary Cassatt (a woman!). The group formed a company, which they called the Anonymous Society of Artists, and exhibited their artwork under this company, eventually calling themselves the Impressionists in 1877. While their exhibitions eventually attracted a crowd, very few works were sold and most of the artists were poor. 

An important invention influenced this movement, and that was photography. The first method of photography was developed by a man named Daguerre and he called it the Daguerreotype. The ability for lower class Parisienne citizens to get their picture taken reduced the importance of the large and detailed portraits done for the ruling and high class citizens. It influenced the subject matter of paintings, showing that many different people and landscapes were worth capturing in an image. They also helped introduce the fact that movement and moments in time could be depicted in a painting, such as in Degas’ Place de la Concorde. 

Impressionism began the tradition of painting outside: taking your easel and paints and bringing them to an area and painting what you see (this technique is called plein air painting – literally just ‘fresh air’ in French). This was the style preferred by artists like Claude Monet (seen in his famous Water Lilies series) as well as other artists like Pisarro and Sisley. Others focused on the human figure, like Edgar Degas who is famous for his many paintings, sculptures, and sketches of ballet dancers, and Berthe Morisot (another woman!) focused on the inner lives of women. Mary Cassatt also painted the private lives of women, as well as showing them in the new modern society. The third most common depiction was of the city of Paris. In the 1860s, Paris underwent a renovation, a modernization if you will, designed by Georges-Eugene Haufmann that created wide streets where people could linger and gather, creating interesting images for the artists to paint. 

Many of the Impressionist artists then decided that this style, too, came with restrictions. Artists of the Impressionist movement such as Cezanne spear-headed the move to Post-Impressionism. Post-Impressionism is characterized by the same bright colours, loose brushstrokes, and painting subjects (nature, scenes from life); however, it moves away from realistic natural light and focuses on shape. Post-Impressionists felt that Impressionism was still too focused on traditional technique and Realism. These artists began to use artificial light, shape, and colour to express the emotions they felt when looking at the scene, which is evident in works like Starry Night by Van Gogh where the stars and sky are not painted as they look in real life, but you can feel the emotions Van Gogh felt while he was painting the scene. The use of artificial light can be seen in works like Cafe Terrace at Night and Starry Night Over the Rhone by Van Gogh, where he explores the effects of the gas lighting found in Arles, where he was staying at the time. Post-Impressionists also used lines, or the lack of them, to elicit the emotions the artist was feeling while they painted; such as in Cezanne or Gaugain’s paintings where they use bright colours and 2-dimensionality to show their feelings about the scene. 

Post-Impressionism could be split into a few sub-categories, one of the most recognizable being Pointillism. Pointillism was about re-introducing some technique into Post-Impressionism, by focusing on colour theory and creating scenes using only dots of paint. This style was created by George Seurat, and can be seen in his painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (Fun Fact: this painting inspired the musical Sunday in the Park with George). These subcategories can collectively be known as Neo-Impressionism. 

The Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movement began in France and included mainly French Artists. While Van Gogh was not French, he spent most of his career painting in France, creating some of his most famous paintings in Arles. Post-Impressionism can be seen in artists’ works in other places such as in some of Edvard Munch’s works (he’s the one who painted The Scream during the Expressionist movement). 

The Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements set that stage for Fauvism and Cubism, which lasted from 1905 through to the 1930s, and the Modernism movement which took place in the form of many styles throughout the 20th century. 

https://www.theartstory.org/movement/impressionism/history-and-concepts/#beginnings_header

https://artincontext.org/art-periods/#Impressionism_1850-1895_Heralding_the_Era_of_Modern_Art

https://www.vincentvangogh.org/starry-night-over-the-rhone.jsp

https://www.theartstory.org/movement/post-impressionism/history-and-concepts/#beginnings_header

https://www.britannica.com/art/Post-Impressionism

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