Neo and Post-Impressionism

Question 1

Rise of Neo-Impressionism - Pointilism/ Divisionism (Italy)

Answer 1

1. impressionists neglected too many traditional elements - fundamental skills in the mastery of form were ignored - choatic and disorderly
2. the broken and free brushstrokes were difficult to follow
3. impressionism - random, spontaneous, ephemeral, casual
4. neo-impressionism - analytic, rational, eternal and formal
5. restoring order, applying rules
   — use of contour for clear and perfect forms
   — careful, balanced and classicial composition
   — regular brushstrokes, repeated forms
6. what is lost - liveliness, vivacity, reality and spontaneity

Question 2

Georges Seurat

Answer 2

1. trained in french academy
2. turned to impressionism when he met monet and degas
3. applied knowledge of science and optics to his painting and founded pointilism

Question 3

Paul signac (no need to remember i think)

Answer 3

1. follower of seurat, painted mainly landscapes

Question 4

Georges Seurat - A sunday on La Grande Jatte

Answer 4

1. studio art completely - spent 2 years on it
2. figures are either frontal, in 3/4 profile, full profile, 3/4 from back or full back
3. figures are reduced to essential forms - harmonious composition achieved by schematic arrangements of lines and colours
4. effect: a timeless and serene scene
5. optical mixture - let the human eye do the colour-mixing
6. seurat juxtaposed dots and dashes of colours systematically and restored order to the disorderly brushstrokes of impressionism
7. pointlisim and mosaics
   — colour dots and dashes are like “tesserae”
   — optical mixture - human eye would perceive them as continuous and connected

Question 5

Georges Seurat - the models

Answer 5

1. careful and balanced composition - recalls the 3 graces in classical art - art for eternity, not fleeting moment
2. reminiscent of the Valpincon bather of ingres

Question 6

Paul Signac - red buoy

Answer 6

1. searched for a balanced between scientific law and visual sensation - less rigid in the forms of pigments
2. bold use of colour - decorative - influenced Fauvism

Question 7

Post- Impressionism

Answer 7

1. the term was coined by the eng critic Roger Fry in 1910
2. denotes late 19th century works that are programmatically anti-academic and anti-impressionist
3. they recuperated what was abandoned by Impressionism
   — expressive power of form adn colour etc

Question 8

Paul Cezanne

Answer 8

1. impressionism lacked form and structure
2. restored solidity and volume to objects, anticipates abstraction in modern art

Question 9

Paul Cezanne

Answer 9

1. founding father of modern art
2. born in aix-en-provence, attended art school in town
3. 1861- moved to paris, learnt from the collection in louvre museum, made friends with Monet and Pissarro
4. 1872-77 impressionistic phase
5. from 1880s, looked for solidity of volume in art, began abstraction of form

Question 10

Paul Cezanne - self portrait

Answer 10

1. he called himself a “student of Pissarro”
2. reminiscent of Pissarro’s self-portrait - broad brushstrokes, same pose
3. coarser brushstrokes, sculptural form
4. colour scheme - closer to Edouard Manet

Question 11

Camille Pissarro - Self Portrait

Answer 11

1. Figure - lifted through alternative use of 2 basic colours, cream and brown; careful study of the reflection of light of different parts of the surfaces

Question 12

Paul Cezanne - Still life with apples and oranges

Answer 12

1. Cezanne gave up the traditional pursuit of 3-dimensional effect established since Renaissance
2. Still life with objects composed with multiple perspectives
3. Cezanne, look at the forms of nature, the cylinder, the sphere and the conel
4. Art - a formalistic analysis of objects and of the painted surface

Question 13

Paul Cezanne - Mont Sainte-Victoire

Answer 13

1. Cezanne sought to achieve the effects of distance, depth, structure and solidity in classical art (Nicolas Poussin) by an optical analysis of nature - lines, planes and colours, i.e. the motifs that comprised nature

Question 14

Paul Gauguin

Answer 14

1. Born in Paris, spent his childhood in Peru
2. Worked as a stack broker, began painting
3. Joined the 6th impressionist exhibition
4. Became a full-time painter
5. Travelled to Brittany, stayed in point-aven, an artists’ colony, developed “synthetics” and “cloisonnism”
6. Visits Van Gogh in Aries
7. Travelled to Central America, Caribbean, Martinique islands and Tahiti
8. Settled in Tahiti definitely
9. freed colours from its descriptive role, explored the expressive role of deep and saturated colour

Question 15

Paul Gauguin - Vision after the sermon

Answer 15

1. Explored the expressive quality of pure colour
2. Synthetics - conveys not a realistic world - but a synthetic image of deeper, invisible meanings and emotions
3. Cloisonnism - like cloisonné enamels, opaque flat colours are separated by dark lines
   —- figures are defined by dark lines before flat colour patches are filled in
4. Japonisme - composition of Jakob wrestling with the angel is inspired by Japanese sumo wrestling art
5. Red - deep religious faith

Question 16

Paul Gauguin - self portrait as Les Miserables

Answer 16

1. Double portrait of himself and Emile Bernard - the poor
2. Inspired by Victor Hugo’s les miserables, he painted himself as Jean Valjean. He compared this figure, full of inner power and love, with the misunderstood artists of his own timeline
3. White flowers - a japanese motif - artistic purity of artists
4. Yellow is used as an act of friendship of Van Gogh - symbol of the fun, warmth and paradise
5. Signed: les miserables to my friend Vincent Gauguin 88
6. Blue green shadow - anguish and ill

Question 17

Paul Gauguin - la Orana Maria (ave Maria)

Answer 17

1. During his stay in Tahiti
2. Paid tribute to the universality of religion and myth
3. Annunciation or adoration of magi - traditional theme in Christian art
4. Foreground - exotic fruits, offerings of Tahitians to idols of Māori religion
5. Discovered a paradise on earth
6. Virgin and child in pic, archangel Gabriel? Or 3 magi

Question 18

Paul Gauguin - where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

Answer 18

1. A final reflection on life and on the deepest uestions of human destiny - painted as a testament after the death of his daughter
2. Heavy mood - sense of “paradise lose” (John Milton 1667)
3. Title is written at left upper corner
4. 2 mysterious figures discussing the fall of mankind
5. Stages of human life
   —- old age, adulthood, childhood, birth and baby-shape
6. Eve plucking fruit from the tree of wisdom

Question 19

Vincent Van Gogh

Answer 19

1. Early life
   —- born in Brabant (holland) father was a priest
   —- worked in an art dealer company (Goupil $ cite), in The Hague, London and Paris
2. The young artists
   —-decided to become an artist
   —- inspired by Millet, painted peasant life
   —- in Antwerp, learnt from Flemish baroque art, began to collect Japanese woodblock prints
3. paris period 1886-1888
   — lived with brother theo in montmartre
   — experimental period - exposed to the impressionist and the Neo-Impressionist styles and themes
   — became friend of young artists e.g. gauguin and pissarro
4. 1888-1889 Arles Period
   — moved to southern france, hoping to establish an artist’s colony
   — mature period - explored the power of bright, intensively saturated colour
   — oct-dec visited by Gauguin, ended in a tragedy
5. 1889-90 Saint Remy Period
   — entered a psychiatric hospital, painted scenes and objects indoor and outdoor
   — also copied works oif his favorite artists e.g. Remebrandt, delacroix, millet
6. 1890 Auvers sur Oise period
   — moved back to a place near to paris, taken care of by Dr. paul Gachet
   — painted portraits and local landscapes
   — worried by the financial stress of Theo, he committed suicide
7. produced over 2000 pieces of works but only sold 1 painting during his lifetime
8. explored the expressive power of colour and burstrokes

Question 20

Vincent Van Gogh - yellow house, Arles

Answer 20

1. Intense blue - typical of Mediterranean sky, complementary to the intense yellow - strong sunlight of provence
2. arles period

Question 21

Vincent Van Gogh - Sunflowers

Answer 21

1. painted 2 to decorate Gauguin’s room
2. painted in heavy impasto - capture the life cycle of nature -> dutch vanitas painting
3. religious sentiment - symbol of sun, warmth and paradise
4. arles period

Question 22

Vincent Van Gogh - the bedroom

Answer 22

1. simple furnishing - like a japanese household
2. symbolism of colour - bright colours to express “repose “ or “sleep”
3. arles period
4. restored original digitally
   — the walls are of a pale violet… the sheet and the pillows very bright lemon green. the bedspread scarlet red… the doors lilac by Letter to theo van goah

Question 23

Vincent Van gogh - chair with pipe and tobacco & gauguin’s armchair

Answer 23

1. twin symbolic portraits of the relationship between Van Gogh and Gauguin’ Gauguin stayed in arles; worshipped as the leader of the brotherhood

Question 24

Vincent Van Gogh - self-portrait with pipe

Answer 24

1. in dec 1888 Van Gogh threatened gauguin with a razor, he then had a nervous breakdown and cut off a piece of his own ear (?)
2. he was recovering and was able to paint
3. done in complementary colours and systematic brushstrokes
4. arles period

Question 25

Vincent Van Gogh - starry night

Answer 25

1. fully developed the expressive power of brushstrokes and colour
2. from Monet - thick lighter colours over darker ones;
3. from Seurat - pigments in short dashes juxtaposed with complementary colours
4. wavy movements of planets (influence from japanese art)
5. cypress - symbol of death
6. saint remy period
7. references
   — Under the wave off Kanagawa by Katsushike Hokusai
   — van gogh’s art is heavily indebted to japanese art

Question 26

Vincent Van gogh - portrait of Dr. Gachet

Answer 26

1. an amateur painter and friend of many impressionists
2. he took care of Van Gogh at Auvers
3. represents the heart-broken expression of our times - melancholy
4. Auvers-sur-Oise period

Question 27

Vincent Van Gogh - Wheatfield with Crows

Answer 27

1. a meandering road in the middle of wheat fields - documentation of where he’s going to kill himself(?)
2. black strokes on the sky and crows - overwhelming mood of death
3. Auvers-sur-Oise period