What is is postimpressionism?

The modern art/contemporary art movement of post impressionism started in the late 19th century and marked the decline of impressionism. The contemporary art/ modern art movement of Post impressionism was an evolution from impressionism. Post impressionism attempted to reject impressionism's inherent limitations. Impressionism was based on recording effects of colours and light. Post impressionism was about breaking this mould and creating form with broken colour and short brush strokes. The effect is that you get a more emotive representation of an object.

The contemporary art/ modern art movement of post impressionism was championed by the likes of Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat (who inspired the modern art/contemporary art movement of Op Art) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

The post-impressionists were very solitude people and preferred to work in isolation unlike the impressionists who were a very close group of artists. However the Post-impressionists did exhibit their work together at modern art/contemporary art exhibitions.

The post impressionist painter, Van Gogh adapted impressionist techniques in order to portray his emotions through the evolving the use of impressionist short brush strokes that would contrast one another to using strong colourful lines that are exaggerated beyond impressionist norms. The result was modern art/contemporary art paintings that conveyed great emotional value.

Paul Gauguin was another example of the way in which impressionism was evolving into the modern art/ contemporary art movement of post-impressionism. Paul Gauguin was interested in moving away from the complexity of the Paris art world for a more rural life. He took his art to rural communities that lived a simplistic life and attempted to capture this by using simplistic techniques such as pure and flat colour.

The modern art/contemporary art movement of Post-impressionism lasted from the end of the 19th century to early 20th century. The modern art/contemporary art movement of post-impressionism was followed by Cubism.