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Dr. Charles Cramer; Dr. Kim Grant; Dr. Steven Zucker; Dr. Beth Harris; Ben Pollitt; Dr. Noelle Paulson; Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Art Institute of Chicago
In this chapter
- Japonisme, continued
- Introduction to Neo-Impressionism, Part I
- Introduction to Neo-Impressionism, Part II
- Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte – 1884: A Conversation
- Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear
- Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night
- The Pont-Aven School and Synthetism
- Paul Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
- Paul Cézanne, The Basket of Apples
- Toulouse-Lautrec at the Moulin Rouge
Japonisme, continued
by DR. CHARLES CRAMER and DR. KIM GRANT
Post-Impressionism
Like many artists associated with Art Nouveau, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was greatly affected by Japanese art and design. His posters, such as the one for a café-concert club called Divan Japonais, show the strong influence of Japanese prints of Kabuki actors in their flat forms, powerful contour design, and dramatic use of black shapes. Unlike the paintings we have looked at thus far in this essay, Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters served a similar role to that of the Japanese woodblock prints; they were a cheap, mass-produced form of publicity for the entertainment industry.
Introduction to Neo-Impressionism, Part I
Fénéon identified greater scientific rigor as the key difference between Neo-Impressionism and its predecessor. Where the Impressionists were “arbitrary” in their techniques, the Neo-Impressionists had developed a “conscious and scientific” method through a careful study of contemporary color theorists such as Michel Chevreul and Ogden Rood.[1]
A scientific method
Pointillism and optical mixture
More subtle color variations were produced by “optical mixture” rather than mixing paint on the palette. For example, examine the grass in the sun. Seurat intersperses the overall field of yellow greens with flecks of warm cream, olive greens, and yellow ochre (actually discolored chrome yellow). Viewed from a distance these flecks blend together to help lighten and warm the green, as we would expect when grass is struck by the yellow-orange light of the afternoon sun. It was this technique of painting in tiny dots (“points” in French) that gave Neo-Impressionism the popular nickname “Pointillism” although the artists generally avoided that term since it suggested a stylistic gimmick.
Similarly, look at the number of colors that make up the little girl’s legs! They include not only the expected pinks and oranges of Caucasian flesh, but also creams, blues, maroons, and even greens. Stand back again, though, and “optical mixture” blends them into a convincing and luminous flesh color, modeled in warm light and shaded by her white dress. (For more technical information on this topic, see Neo-Impressionist color theory).
Compositional rigor
The Neo-Impressionist … will not begin a canvas before he has determined the layout … Guided by tradition and sc