Art Appreciation: Why so Radical? An introduction to Post Impressionism

We will look at why the Post-Impressionists rejected Impressionism's concern with the spontaneous and naturalistic rendering of light and colour and favoured instead an emphasis on more symbolic content, formal order and structure. These Post Impressionists depict artwork that is characterized by a variety of individual styles whereby artists explored their personal expressions, leading to a wide range of techniques and themes and a concern for deeper symbolism. Consideration will be given to the artistic concerns and work of Cezanne – and why he was thought to be the father of modern art, Gaugin, his choice of symbolic content, why Seurat was inspired by the new theories of colour optics and how Van Gogh, famous for his use of bright emotive colours, searched with equal determination for a personal expression in his art. We will pay close attention to how their artistic journey and style dramatically influenced generations of artists and contributed to paving the way for the modern art movements that followed.