Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism  is  the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. The exhibition that opened on 8 of November 1910 was called “Manet and Post-Impressionists”. In a way it was an explicitly anti-Impressionist manifesto. Fry took Manet as the starting-point. Then there was massive representation of Gauguin, Van Gogh and Cezanne. Seurat, Serusier, Denis, Vallotton and Redon were also represented but not so wide.  Admittedly the Post-Impressionism net has been spread rather wider than before in the exhibition, but all of the great Post-Impressionist masters has been felt by associated with the exhibition and with its catalogue. The Post-Impressionism  is born out of reaction against Impressionism that occurred in 1880s. It started developing with Seurat, Cross and Signac. The emphasis was firmly on Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh, artists who were “interested in the discoveries of the impressionism only so far as these discoveries helped them to express emotions which the objects themselves evoked”.  
The Post-Impressionists were dissatisfied with the triviality of subject matter and the loss of structure in Impressionist paintings, though they did not agree on the way forward. Georges Seurat and his followers concerned themselves with Pointillism, the systematic use of tiny dots of colour. Paul Cézanne set out to restore a sense of order and structure to painting, to "make of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the museums". He achieved this by reducing objects to their basic shapes while retaining the bright fresh colours of Impressionism. The Impressionist Camille Pissarro experimented with Neo-Impressionist ideas between the mid 1880s and the early 1890s. Discontented with what he referred to as romantic Impressionism, he investigated Pointillism which he called scientific Impressionism before returning to a purer Impressionism in the last decade of his life. Vincent van Gogh used colour and vibrant swirling brush strokes to convey his feelings and his state of mind. Although they often exhibited together, Post-Impressionist artists were not in agreement concerning a cohesive movement. Younger painters during the 1890s and early 20th century worked in geographically disparate regions and in various stylistic categories, such as Fauvism and Cubism.

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