PrimeLuck ArtsPost-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism describes artists who built on Impressionism but moved toward personal feeling, structure and symbol. It opened the way to modern art.
- Period
- Nineteenth-century art
- Approximate dates
- c. 1886 to c. 1905
- Place of origin
- France
- Key regions
- France, with influence across Europe
- Art forms
- Painting, printmaking
- Major artists
- Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Visual introduction
The Starry Night
Vincent van Gogh · 1889 · Oil on canvas · Museum of Modern Art, New York
Swirling brushwork and colour express feeling more than an exact view of the sky.
The Basket of Apples
Paul Cezanne · c. 1893 · Oil on canvas · Art Institute of Chicago
Tilted tables and shifting viewpoints build solid form, a step toward Cubism.
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
Paul Gauguin · 1897 to 1898 · Oil on canvas · Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Flat colour and symbolic figures show Gauguin's turn toward idea and meaning.
Historical context
Artists such as Van Gogh, Cezanne and Gauguin learned from Impressionism and then went their own ways. They felt colour and light were not enough, and looked for emotion, structure or meaning.
The group was not a single club. Travel, Japanese prints, and non-European art, which Gauguin sought in Brittany and Tahiti, also shaped their ideas. Their work later inspired Fauvism, Expressionism and Cubism.
Visual characteristics
Colour: strong, expressive colour used for feeling rather than only for what the eye sees.
Form: Cezanne reduced nature to solid shapes, while others used flat areas and bold outline.
Brushwork: thick, rhythmic strokes in Van Gogh, and symbolic subjects in Gauguin.
Related movements
Sources and further reading
Further reading: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Tate, Art Terms. Smarthistory.