Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
Impressionism broke with academic painting by capturing fleeting light and modern life in loose brushwork, while Post-Impressionists such as Cézanne and Van Gogh pushed toward new structures and expression.
Definition
The successive movements in late 19th-century French art, beginning with Impressionism's optical and informal painting of modern life and continuing with the structural and expressive innovations of Post-Impressionism.
Scope
This topic studies French painting from the 1860s through the 1900s, including the Impressionists' plein-air practice and depiction of modern Paris, the independent exhibitions, and the diverse Post-Impressionist responses of Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin, and Van Gogh that laid groundwork for 20th-century modernism.
Core questions
- How did Impressionism break with academic conventions of finish and subject?
- How did Impressionists depict modern urban and leisure life?
- How did Post-Impressionists move beyond optical impression toward structure and expression?
- How did these movements prepare the way for 20th-century art?
Key theories
- Painting of modern life
- T. J. Clark's social-historical argument that Manet and the Impressionists registered the transformation of Paris and class relations, making modern urban experience their true subject.
- Optical realism and plein-air painting
- The account of Impressionism as an attempt to record immediate visual sensation and changing light, painted outdoors with broken color and visible brushwork.
History
John Rewald's histories of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism established the standard narrative of the movements as a sequence of stylistic innovation. From the 1970s, T. J. Clark and the social history of art reread the same paintings as documents of class, modernity, and the transformation of Paris.
Debates
- Optical innovation versus social meaning
- Scholars debate whether Impressionism is best understood as a primarily perceptual and stylistic revolution or as a response to the social and political conditions of modern Paris.
Key figures
- John Rewald
- T. J. Clark
Related topics
Seminal works
- rewald1973
- clark1985
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name 'Impressionism' come from?
- It derives from Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise and was first used dismissively by a critic, before the artists adopted it.
- What is Post-Impressionism?
- A loose term for the varied art of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and others who built on, yet moved beyond, Impressionism toward greater structure or expression.