Mr. Lu Xun said, "There is no road in the world, and the more people who walk, the more they become the road." The same is true of the ideas in the human brain, many ideas do not actually exist, but once they are created and recognized by everyone, they have vitality since then, and this is the case with "post-impressionism".
Drawbridge with a Lady with a Parasol, 1888, in the collection of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, .jpg, Germany
01
The origin of the name
If you're a curator of an art museum, now you have hundreds of paintings from Paul. Cézanne, George. Seurat, Paul. Gauguin, Vincent. If you are not familiar with their paintings, then please take a look at the paintings below to find what they have in common.
Tahiti 1892 Gauguin
I wonder if you have found anything in common between them? I think you might have talked to Roger, the director of the British Museum, who was setting up the exhibition for them at the time. Fry (1866-1945) in 1910, caught up in the same troubles as you.
Paul. Cézanne, George. Seurat, Paul. Gauguin, Vincent. Three of Van Gogh's paintings have participated in Impressionist exhibitions, and Cézanne has been considered an Impressionist painter since the first Impressionist exhibition. Although Gauguin was not well recognized by Impressionists such as Monet, he also participated in several Impressionist exhibitions with the support of Pissarro, the elder of the Impressionists.
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte, 1884-1886
Seurat's exhibition of Sunday Afternoon on Big Bowl Island at the Eighth Impressionist Exhibition marked a new chapter in Impressionism. Because the four of them, in their own way, led the art to the ideal place they thought they were.
Faced with very different styles of painting, the curator also needed to integrate Manet's paintings into them and exhibit them together. However, in art, there is a kind of "two-law reversal", that is, the public's interest points and students' interests are opposed to each other.
Tahitian Women on the Beach (1891) 高更
When avant-garde artists pursued the instantaneous present and created Impressionist style paintings, the public thought it was all about it, until it became a hit in New York in 1886, and then the Impressionist style became popular in continental Europe.
Van Gogh's The Crow and the Wheat Field
By 1910, Impressionism was already very popular on the European continent, and Manet was the super IP of the art circle at that time, so in order to combine Cézanne, Syrah, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Manet, Frye thought after much deliberation that the best solution was to add a prefix - eventually, the name of the exhibition was "Manet and the Post-Impressionist Artists." ”
Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victor
But for the British public, "Impressionism" itself is very new, and "Post-Impressionism" means too many fresh concepts, so the exhibition has been violently attacked, but Roger . Frye was also not a vegetarian, and he adopted a series of articles and books to call himself "post-impressionist".
It is said that no one can offend the theoretical scholars, and in his analysis, he changed the public's view of modern art and also made a revolution in art criticism. Less than a decade after the exhibition was held, almost all of the paintings that were originally dismissed as "garbage" entered the National Gallery of Art, but instead became the object of people's love and discussion. And "post-impressionism" was also widely circulated in the controversy.
So what exactly makes Fry think that all four of them can be reduced to "post-impressionist" painters?
02
Paul. Seurat
The so-called "back" is the transcendence and rebellion of the "front". So for Seurat (1859-1891), what did he inherit from Impressionism and beyond?
Seurat returned to Paris in 1880 to start painting and later became one of the Impressionist painters. As Seurat's contact with impressionists grew, Seurat found that impressionist works were still not real enough, too much pursuit of a fleeting feeling, and instead missed a grasp of the eternal.
Baths of Anière, Vera, 1884, in the collection of the National Gallery
Seurat wanted to bring order and discipline to impressionism, to give reason and solidity to everyday life, to increase the sense of eternity. But the question is how does order and discipline manifest itself? Seurat turned to science!
In the 1880s, science was changing the lives of Parisians, Gustav. Eiffel created a "steel giant" in Paris, which also means that Paris has long since changed from chaos to a modern masterpiece based on mathematical precision.
Detail from Circus Sideshow (Parade de Cirque) (1889) showing pointillism and color theory
Seurat also believed that anything could be explained by science, even in the making of art. So, he wanted to explore the mysteries of color.
The Impressionists introduced the scientific concept of light and color into painting, innovated the traditional concept of inherent color, and created a modern sketching colorology with light source color and ambient color as the core. But Seurat went further, arguing that the Impressionists' color grading was not scientific enough.
He rejected the impressionist method of improvisation and replaced it with a large amount of dotted pigments carefully applied to the canvas, and he often selected from the opposite sides of the color wheel to strengthen their vitality [1].
Seurat found that if the contrasting colors (red and green, blue and yellow, etc.) were slightly separated, they would appear brighter. Seurat invented the painting techniques of the pointillist school.
Paul Signac, Femmes au Puits, 1892, showing a detail with constituent colors. Musée d'Orsay, Paris
The practice of pointillist is in stark contrast to the traditional method of mixing pigments on a palette. Pointillistism is similar to the four-color CMYK printing process used by some color printers and large presses.
Seurat's tiny pigments are neither touching nor mixed, and the viewer's eyes will naturally blend them together. He would apply a bright white base to the white cloth to enhance the color, which would strengthen the luminosity of these solid color dispersions, giving his picture a sparkling, swaying appearance. 【2】
"Sunday Afternoon on Big Bowl Island"
Seurat's most representative work of the pointillist school. "Sunday Afternoon on Big Bowl Island" doesn't have any of the "fleeting moments" of impressionist artists; it's more like a game of the little man, where the figures are frozen and the music stops and continues to maintain their pose, neither objective nor realistic.
Because no matter where the paris park is noisy, people will not stand or sit in order as in the picture.
Seurat inherited the brightly colored painting method of Impressionist art, and at the same time chose the theme of Impressionism- everyday life. But Seurat was not satisfied with the Impressionists' need for reality, and with the help of a more precise scientific method, using the principle of light and color in the eye, he pushed artistic creation to a scientific extreme.
So much so that Gauguin commented that the pointillist school is no longer art, because it cares too much about the so-called "reality" and has long lost the artist's imagination for the work. So the pointillist school is a kind of artist today that few artists walk on this path.
Van Gogh
Vincent. Van Gogh is arguably one of the most dramatic artists, and his madness, ear cutting, suicide, and his expressive paintings are his best-known stories. As Pisaro said, "I have said many times that this man will either go mad or surpass all of us in the future, and he has accounted for both of these points, for which I did not foresee." ”【3】
Self-Portrait, Bontaka 1887
Van Gogh lived in northern Europe and came to Paris to be attracted by the rich colors of Impressionism. Here he learned the impressionist technique of drawing small brushstrokes and how to use color. Later van Gogh arrived in Arles, and the sunlight in the south of France completely changed the color perception of a young man from Northern Europe.
Van Gogh studied Impressionism but did not subscribe to the Impressionist philosophy: an obsession with "seeing is believing.". For Van Gogh, what he wanted most was a deeper truth about the human condition, not only about what he saw, but also about how he felt about what he saw.
Vincent_van_Gogh_(1853-1890)_-_The_Olive_Trees_(1889)
Van Gogh began to distort his image to express emotion, pursuing effect like a satirical cartoonist and exaggerating. As Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo
"I aspire to create this inaccuracy, this deviation from the facts, to reshape, to change, so that they become, how can I say? - False, if you want to say so, is more true than literally" [4]
Cypresses, 1889, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Van Gogh's works no longer express the objective world, but the objective world in our inner feelings, Van Gogh believes that painting is an expression of emotion, Van Gogh's original thick painting, making his painting more like a 3D sculpture.
Van Gogh's drawing technique profoundly influenced another painter from Northern Europe, Edward. Munch (1863-1944), who wanted to make his work more emotional, did not know where to start until he saw Van Gogh's work on a trip to Paris.
The Scream (1893) by Edward Munch
In The Scream, Munch imitated Van Gogh's "distorted" image to convey the emotions of his soul.
Inspired by Van Gogh's use of painting to express his inner emotions, the Irish painter Francis. Bacon's Portrait of Pope Innocent X takes the expressionist style to the extreme.
Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953 Francis. bacon
"Painting is a way for someone's own nervous system to project onto the canvas", which is a portrayal of Van Gogh.
Painter on the road to Tarascon 1888 (Vincent Willem van Gogh, Vincent van Gogh
At the age of 37, Van Gogh, who was at the height of his creative years, fired two shots at his chest, leaving the world he loved and painful.
03
Gauguin
Gauguin's rebellion against the Impressionists was even stronger. First, Gauguin argued that the Impressionist artists lacked the rigor of governing and could not see anything beyond the reality in front of them. He argues that their rational view of life negates the most important element of art: imagination.
When Will You Get Married, 1892 Gauguin
Moreover, for Vera and Van Gogh, they at least identified with the Impressionist theme: modern life. But for Gauguin, he felt that he was trapped in the cage of civilization. He longed for a place full of primitive savages, to be "a barbarian, a wolf without a collar in the bushes."
But Gauguin also inherited some of the Impressionist techniques, such as the use of two-dimensional large color blocks, which added a flat and childish character to the picture.
Ta Matete, 1892 Gauguin
In 1890, Gauguin left Tahiti, and he wanted to continue to live in a prehistoric, primitive way, untied by the costumes and shallowness of the modern world, and to express it. 【5】
Gauguin advocated primitive life, and tahiti's sun, sand, and aquamarine blue gave Gauguin great inspiration for his creation. The people here are simple and primitive, with an unworldly naïveté.
Gauguin's paintings are full of symbolism, and he paints no longer to depict reality, but also to outline his inner world. For the choice of color, also purely for symbolism and decoration, for dramatic metaphors and pictures, choose to abandon reality.
Why Are You Angry? 1896 Gauguin
In Why Are You Angry we can see 6 women, three women in the foreground, two sitting on the ground whispering, facing us with their breasts exposed, looking shyly at the ground, and in front of her is a standing arrogant looking down at them.
At the back of the picture, an old woman sits in the doorway of the thatched hut, while a young girl in the back of the picture has taken off her blouse, and an old woman in the back is coaxing her.
It is said that this depicts a scene of a brothel. The three women in the foreground have begun to solicit guests, or admit their fate, or shy, or indifferent. The young woman in the back is on the road to no return of fate, without knowing it.
Gauguin used the painting to symbolize that Tahiti was being "raped" by an alien civilization. He witnessed the island's unspoiled way of life blaming his fellow citizens for its rapid erosion and destruction.
They are psychodramas that expose the melancholy and trauma that torment the subjects of the paintings, as well as all of us. His rebellion against Impressionism was a return of art to the kingdom of imagination. 【6】
04
brief summary
The representative figure of Post-Impressionism, Vera was the pioneer of the pointillist school; Van Gogh was the pioneer of Expressionism; Gao was the pioneer of Symbolism, Primitivism. Cézanne, on the other hand, was called the "father of modernism" by Fry, even the famous Picasso of the 20th century.
In terms of painting style, the feeling of painting, and the treatment of the work and the pursuit of artistic goals are completely different.
And "post-impressionism" is also an artistic concept invented decades after their deaths, these four people, their styles developed in very different paths, and in the end they have less and less in common.
Impressionism was the beginning of modern art, and before Impressionism, art was the "visual language of the imagination", and the works painted did not reflect the current real life.
Thus, the Impressionist painters opened a new chapter in their pursuit of art, namely the pursuit of "strict objectivity and truthful response to everyday life".
Since then, the combinations of "strict objectivity", "everyday life", and "imaginative visual language" have grown into a variety of modern art.
For example, Seurat is "Impressionism + scientific color analysis" to make Impressionism more solid and stable; Van Gogh is "Impressionist small brushstrokes + distorted lines" to express rich inner emotions; Gauguin uses "Impressionism's two-dimensional large color block painting method + "imaginative visual language" to express symbolic meaning. Cézanne, on the other hand, is the artist who has lived the longest among them, and has practiced and tried the most, and has gone further.
Because they all developed from Impressionism, "Post-Impressionism" is the rejection, inheritance, development and rebellion of Impressionism. Thus "Post-Impressionism" has its own place in art history.
reference:
- p102, "150 Years of Modern Art" by [English] Will. Gong Peizi, translated by Wang Shuo and Wang Tongle, Guangxi Normal University Press
- p103, by Will. Gong Peizi, translated by Wang Shuo and Wang Tongle, Guangxi Normal University Press
- p85, by [English] Will. Gong Peizi, translated by Wang Shuo and Wang Tongle, Guangxi Normal University Press
- p86, by Will. Gong Peizi, translated by Wang Shuo and Wang Tongle, Guangxi Normal University Press
- p095 Author: [English] Will. Gong Peizi, translated by Wang Shuo and Wang Tongle, Guangxi Normal University Press
- p97, by Will. Gong Peizi, translated by Wang Shuo and Wang Tongle, Guangxi Normal University Press
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