SYMBOLISM Art history usually places Symbolism, after or coinciding with Post-Impressionism. But Symbolism was much older and could be traced back as far as the painting of Gustave Moreau in the 1850s and the poetry of Charles Baudelaire of the 1860s. This movement...
The Avant-Garde Before the Great War The decades of the fin-de-siècle period in Europe were fruitful ones, years of innovation and experimentation in painting. “Ism” followed “ism:” Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, German Expressionism, ended only by...
Post-Impressionist Artists: Paul Cézanne (1839 – 1906) Famous for wanting to reform Impressionism, Paul Cézanne approached nature in quite a fashion that distinguished him from the Impressionists and the other Post-impressionists. Like Paul Gauguin, he understood the...
Post-Impressionist Artists: Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890) Writing to his devoted brother, Théo, Vincent van Gogh said, “I have a terrible lucidity sometimes when nature is so beautiful these days and then I do not feel myself anymore and the painting...
Post-Impressionist Artists: Georges Seurat (1859 – 1891) Georges Seurat began as an “Impressionist,” or, at least he appeared in one of their last shows, but his goal was to reform Impressionism. In comparison to the older artists’ more direct approach to art,...
Post-Impressionist Artists: Paul Gauguin (1848 – 1903) Paul Gauguin and other artists of the late 19th century wanted to invent a new art to replace the analytic form of Impressionism. Gauguin, a former Sunday painter and stock broker, had been a student...
