IMPRESSIONISM
VS
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
SUMMARY
- Impressionist style emphasized color and depicted realistic scenes of ordinary subjects while the Post-Impressionist style was derived from Impressionism.
- Post-Impressionism used a geometric form to depict its subjects while Impressionism used small, thin brushstrokes that gave the painting softer edges.
- Impressionism paved the way for Neo-impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and Post-Impressionism.
- Post-Impressionism paved the way for modern art.
- Post-Impressionism involved a more methodical and time-consuming process than Impressionism.
- Impressionism captured the heat of the subject while Post-Impressionism was based on the emotion and concept of the artist.
IMPRESSIONISM
Impressionists painted contemporary landscapes and scenes of modern life, especially of bourgeois leisure and recreation, instead of drawing on past art or historical and mythological narrative for their inspiration. Interested in capturing transitory moments, the Impressionists paid attention to the fleeting effect of light, atmosphere, and movement. They emphasized the paint on the surface of the canvas, flattening the sense of perspective through a lack of tonal modeling, and using daring cropped perspectives which were influenced by Japanese prints. The Impressionist movement consisted of painters living in Paris who worked between 1860 and 1900. This movement included such artists as Frédéric Bazille, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Mary Cassat. They sparked an international group of followers and revolutionized Western conceptions of painting.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
Post-Impressionism is a term used to describe the reaction in the 1880s against Impressionism. It was led by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Georges Seurat. The Post-Impressionists rejected Impressionism’s concern with the spontaneous and naturalistic rendering of light and color. Instead, they favored an emphasis on more symbolic content, formal order, and structure. Similar to the Impressionists, however, they stressed the artificiality of the picture. The Post-Impressionists also believed that color could be independent from form and composition as an emotional and aesthetic bearer of meaning. Both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism include some of the most famous works of modern art such as Monet’s Waterlilies, and van Gogh’s Starry Night. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism continues to be some of the most well-known and beloved artistic movements.
Cézanne’s
Mont Sainte-Victoire
The bulk of Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings during this period were from the mid-1880s on. Most of these works were executed with Cézanne situated east of Aix-en-Provence, a southern region of France, and Cézanne’s birthplace. He was particularly drawn to Mont Sainte-Victoire for its clarity and stark geometric form. In his works, Cézanne generally strove to unify rhythm, form, and color. His works became the most detailed from 1884-1888, and became more loose and “visionary” later on.
Black Artists Who Changed Art History
Concurrent with the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements in France, Black artists were emerging in America, challenging discrimination and breaking racial barriers through their art.
For centuries, black artists have fought and persevered against racism, inequality and sexism, elements which have manifested themselves in their art, and reimagined the traditional art history canon. From early 19th century pioneers, like Edmonia Lewis and Henry Ossawa Tanner, who paved the way with international success, to contemporaries like Kerry James Marshall and Kara Walker, black artists continue to reveal, tackle and dismantle injustices through their innovative work.
Robert S. Duncanson
(1821/1822–1872)
Duncanson spent much of his adult life in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is classified as a Midwestern romantic, realist painter who favored landscapes and was active during the time of the American Civil War. He has been recognized internationally as one of the best American landscapists.
Edmonia Lewis
(1844–1907)
Lewis was the first professional African-American and Native-American sculptor. Although she attended Oberlin College, she did not graduate due to a racially-motivated accusation of poisoning. Lewis’ sculptures often showcase her heritage and some of her most notable pieces, such as Hagar, feature prominent figures from the Bible.
Henry Ossawa Tanner
(1859–1937)
Much of Tanner’s work contains strong religious themes. Despite this, Tanner’s father, a minister in the African Methodist Episcopalian Church, was not particularly supportive of his son’s passion for art. However, Tanner attracted the attention of some wealthy patrons and was able to pursue further study in France. His works are now held in high regard, both within the United States and internationally.
Contemporaries to early 19th century African-American pioneers
Kara Elizabeth Walker
Kara Elizabeth Walker is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes.
Walker is regarded as among the most prominent and acclaimed Black American artists working today.
Upon completion, Walker’s ambitious sculpture was approximately 75 feet long and 35 feet tall, and was constructed from 330 polystyrene blocks.
Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall is an American artist and professor, known for his large-scale paintings, sculptures, and other objects that take African-American life and history as their subject matter.
His work can be found in the collections of such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a testament to his efforts to offer more representations of African-Americans in art museums.
Mbulu Ngulu Reliquary Figures
These pieces are noted for their copper and brass reliquary guardian figures, which are part of a powerful religious and mystical order known as Bwete. In the iKota language these figures are called Mbulu Ngulu. As the people of Gabon began to convert to Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries, missionaries and colonial officials began to collect these figures. Today, most reliquary figures are found in museums in Europe and North America.
The reliquary figures of the Kota are distinguished from their neighbors by their copper overlays. Some masks are found in collections, but these are extremely rare. Other utilitarian objects, such as pots, baskets, stools, and knives were often decorated with delicate patterns.
PARALLELS
Inspired by the events and controversies surrounding the Barnes Foundation, one of the world’s greatest collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and modern art, Thomas Gibbons brings us his exploration of the impact of race and racial equity on society in Permanent Collection.
Similarities to Gibbons’ Permanent Collection
- Barnes had a deep respect for African-Americans and Black culture.
- The Barnes Collection holdings include: 181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, 59 Matisses, 46 Picassos, 16 Modiglianis and 7 van Goghs.
- Barnes’ will stipulated that nothing from the collection could be lent, sold or moved on the walls and must remain exactly as it was.
- Barnes had many enemies and was aggressive to the point of brutality. He harbored a particular dislike for the academic art-establishment.
- Barnes’ will gave control of the Foundation to Lincoln University, a small, predominantly black liberal-arts college in Oxford, Pa.
- The Foundation suffered a prolonged, public and legal battle that started with a lawsuit, after a citizens’ group sued then-president Richard Glanton for slander after he accused them of racism.
- Barnes was killed in a vehicular accident.
After the Donor’s death no picture belonging to the collection shall ever be loaned, sold or otherwise disposed of except that if any picture passes into a state of actual decay so that it is no longer of any value it may be removed for that reason only from the collection.
—from the By-Laws of the Barnes Foundation, December 1922
THE BARNES FOUNDATION
Albert C. Barnes began collecting art as early as 1902, but became a serious collector in 1912. In 1922, Barnes received a charter from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania establishing the Barnes Foundation as an educational institution dedicated to promoting the appreciation of fine art. He purchased the property in Merion and the foundation officially opened in 1925.
Barnes created detailed terms of operation in an indenture of trust to be honored in perpetuity after his death. These included limiting public admission to two days a week, so the school could use the art collection primarily for student study, and prohibiting the loan of works in the collection, colored reproductions of its works, touring the collection, and presenting touring exhibitions of other art.
Barnes’ interests included what came to be called the Harlem Renaissance, and he followed its artists and writers. In March 1925, Barnes wrote an essay “Negro Art and America”, published in the Survey Graphic of Harlem. Barnes supported young African-American artists and musicians with scholarships to study at the Foundation. Barnes' support of African-Americans extended beyond the cultural disciplines. As early as 1917, Barnes helped his African-American employees buy houses in Philadelphia.
Barnes died on July 24, 1951, in an automobile crash where he failed to stop at a stop sign and was hit broadside by a truck at an intersection. He was killed instantly.
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