umbrella covering the generation of artists who sought new forms of expression in the wake of the pictorial revolution wrought by impressionism. Among the principal figures in this group were Pierre Bonnard, Paul Czanne, Paul Gauguin, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent van Gogh.

2      Although their individual styles differed profoundly, all of these artists moved away from the aesthetic program of impressionism and, in particular, from the impressionists' emphasis on depicting a narrow spectrum of visual reality. It would be a mistake to view the postimpressionists as simply rejecting their impressionist heritage; rather, they accepted the revolutionary impact of impressionism and went on to explore new aesthetic ideas, many of which grew out of concepts implicit in impressionism. Another connecting link between most of the postimpressionists with the notable exception of Czanne was a common emphasis on surface pattern, a trait that led many contemporary critics to use the term decorative to describe postimpressionist pictures. Aside from a general dissatisfaction with impressionism and a widely shared interest in surface pattern, however, the postimpressionists displayed few stylistic or thematic similarities.

3      Czanne had belonged to the impressionist movement, but he withdrew (1878) from it because he wanted to create a style that he described as more "solid and durable." Working in isolation in Aix-en-Provence during the 1880s and '90s, he evolved a new concept of space that was of fundamental importance to 20th-century painting. This highly individual art, which was to be greatly admired by the next generation of painters, laid the groundwork for the creation of cubism by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

4      The art of Gauguin and van Gogh, however, reflected a more emotional bias and involved highly charged colors and a rhythmical patterning of lines across the surface of a picture. Like Czanne, both Gauguin and van Gogh abandoned the impressionist movement, but unlike their fellow postimpressionists, they directed their talents toward elaborating on the flat decorative patterns they first encountered in Japanese prints. Whereas Czanne rejected the impressionist vision of reality, Gauguin spoke of the fundamental fallacy of naturalism and of impressionism, blaming the latter style for seeking "around the eye and not in the mysterious center of thought." In an extreme effort to shake off the past, Gauguin sought what he viewed as the universal truths implicit in the so-called primitive art of the South Seas. Van Gogh also searched for elemental truth, but he did so in the inner world of the psyche. Gauguin's work led directly to Fauvism, and van Gogh's to expressionism.

5      The Fauves and expressionists also owed a large debt to such neoimpressionists as Seurat, whose use of "points" or dots of pure color and whose banishment of conventional modeling added to the mounting interest at the end of the 19th century in unrealistic color and flat patterns (see neoimpressionism). Finally, the other-worldliness of the postimpressionist symbolists (see symbolism, art), such as Redon, together with the distorted lines of Art Nouveau in the works of Toulouse-Lautrec and other contemporaries, fostered a growing tendency toward abstract art that was to prove essential to nonfigurative developments in painting after 1910.

6      Although in the strict sense it cannot be called a movement, the postimpressionist period did provide a vital and creative link between the impressionist revolution and the founding of all the subsequent major art movements of the 20th century.

After reading discussion

1) In your own words, what are the characteristics of Post-Impressionism? Why are these characteristics important?

2) Since the individual styles of the principal figures in the group of Post-Impressionism differed profoundly, why were they classified in the same category of Post-Impressionism? What was the reasoning behind this and do you agree wit the reasoning?