Post- Impressionism

     The term "Post-Impressionism" was invented by Roger Fry as he prepared for an exhibition at Grafton Gallery in London in 1910.

Post-Impressionists pushed the ideas of the Impressionists into new directions. The word "Post-Impressionism" indicates their link to the original Impressionist ideas and their departure from those ideas (their modernist journey from the past into the future).

For example, Vincent van Gogh intensified Impressionism's already vibrant colors and painted them thickly on the canvas. Van Gogh's energetic brushstrokes expressed emotional qualities.

George Seurat took the rapid, "broken" brushwork of Impressionism and developed it into the millions of colored dots that create Pointillism, while Paul Cézanne elevated Impressionism's separation of colors into separations of whole planes of color.

Here are some paintings of George Seurat using Pointillism:

     Pointillism is my favorite style of painting that we have reviewed in class so far. I find it quite amusing how someone manages to make a person, landscape or anything by using millions of little points. And they're also really colorful.