Thomas Aaron

Professor Slattum

HUM M10B

Paper #2

Impressionism and the following so called post-impressionism, were both very important

periods for art and artists looking to try a new style. Impressionism originated from a painting by

Claude Monet called Impression, Sunrise where he used sketchy brush strokes and kept everything in a

grid lining up with the horizon (horizontal) and masts (vertical). Post-impressionism, despite it's title,

was not an end of impressionism but rather an attempt to expand and improve it during the early

modern era. An early post-impressionism painter was Paul Cezanne who would paint things like fruit

on a table which appeared to be haphazardly thrown all over the table, one such painting ,Still Life with

Peppermint Bottle, uses broken brush strokes and little planes as Cezanne put it. These two styles

exhibit their own unique themes and looks, but were still slightly similar as post-impressionism was

just an improvement on impressionism after all.

Impressionism came to be in 1874 in France with Claude Monet who wanted to move away

from Realism and start something new, this came to fruition with his painting Impression, Sunrise

which the term Impressionism came from. Other prominent impressionists included Edgar Degas and

Berthe Morisot, both of whom were fond of painting people, often making everyone out to be beautiful.

This can be seen in Morisot's painting Summer's Day, where we see a pair of women taking a boat ride

on a lake, both women are quite beautiful as is the setting, Morisot using varied blues and greens to get

amazing reflection effects on the water and really making it feel like summer. Even the duck behind the

girl facing us is done well especially when you see that the white froth from the ducks paddling has
also been included. As for Edgar Degas, he mainly liked to paint dancers, but not when they were

dancing but rather in between performances when they were getting ready and much less graceful

looking. This can be seen in his painting The Dancing Class in which he depicts a class of young

ballerinas during instruction where some can be seen practicing, sitting down, or getting ready for

practice. For both Degas and Morisot, their work was is charactarized by loose brush strokes and

unique perspectives.

Post-impressionist painting was an attempt to refine the impressionism style and give it more

control and less objective. The post-impressionist painters wanted to create art that was more personal

its interpretation and expression as well as deepen the psychological depth of the paintings and thus

improve on what impressionism was lacking in. Post-impressionist painters like Paul Cezanne and

Vincent van Gogh brought form and control to their works and made them more focused as compared

with impressionism. Cezanne liked to paint fruit on table cloth that had been moved around and

scuffled, these paintings showcased his use of planes to create each color in each object which made

the paintings look very solid and picturesque. It is unclear whether or not Cezanne's paintings were

prearranged or if everything in the painting was just king of thrown around until it came into line with

what Cezanne wanted. Van Gogh was another example of a post-impressionist painter who used lots of

emotional color and painted more quickly than others. In his work Starry Night Van Gogh uses many

dark and light contrasting colors to emphasize the moon and large dark tree or bush in the foreground

as one is extremely dark and the other is extremely light. You can almost see each brush stroke Van

Gogh used in the painting because of the way he styled it. In contrast to Van Gogh, the artist Georges

Seurat had a very deliberate and slow method of painting that used many dots of paint that blended

together. This is exemplified in his work A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Fatte where he uses dots

that seem to blend with each other when the painting is viewed from a distance. This style is very

scientific and deliberate, the process for this style of painting is very slow and is accentuated by lots of

curved lines. Post-impressionism took what impressionism lacked and improved upon it greatly.
 Impressionism is the root of post-impressionism so it makes sense that the two would be

similar. Both styles focus more on expression and interpretation rather than realism and straightforward

meanings. Just the way Paul Cezanne's Mount Sainte-Victoire from the Large Pine Tree looks like it

could have come from either artistic era if we look at the brush stroke method which makes things in

the painting look a little blurry which was a prominent feature in a lot of impressionism work. Going

back to Van Gogh's Starry Night, this piece also looks like it could have come from either era as the

brush strokes look very blurry and random but are in fact very controlled and deliberate when inspected

more closely. However, despite some similarities, post-impressionism was still an attempted expansion

on impressionism, so it's only natural that they have their differences. Post-impressionism art contains a

lot more emotion and depth than impressionism art did and at least tried to be more psychologically

stimulating rather than being objective. Impressionism was characterized by loose brush strokes that

didn't appear to be under any kind of control where as post-impressionism tried to reestablish the

control in their brush strokes and made more solid looking art rather than the blurry looking pieces that

came out of the impressionism era. Post-impressionism was a change and an expansion on

impressionism and although the inspiration the latter provided the former can clearly be seen in most

post-impressionist works, the two also have blatantly different approaches, perspectives and styles than

each other.

Impressionism and post-impressionism are two very influential eras in art that saw many great

works produced and would continue to influence artists even today. Impressionism was characterized

by vague lines and blurred scenes that gave a hint of what they were trying to portray sometimes, and

other times made it look even more beautiful than if it were painted clearly. Post-impressionism was an

attempt to bring more depth, control and personality to impressionism and gave birth to many unique

painting styles and artists. Both styles have introduced new ideas and concepts into the art world that

would change the way people interpreted art forever. These two great artistic styles truly opened the

way for new interpretation of all art.