From Monet to Warhol - 2: Neo-Impressionism, Post-Impressionism

From Monet to Warhol: Neo-Impressionism, Post-Impressionism

at the Goulandris Foundation, Athens.

This is the second post on this exhibition. You can see the first post here . As always, I am including the introduction in this second post - if you don't want to read it again, go down to the first picture.

A wonderful exhibition, which gave me great pleasure. Firstly because it was great seeing paintings that I had seen before and loved. Secondly because some of it was new to me, and this includes artists I had not come across before.

The ensemble of eighty three works of forty five artists, mostly paintings,  which is on loan from a Swiss private collection, was assembled over three generations, affording us the opportunity to retrace the history of modern art from the 1880s until the present day.

Most of the major movements, currents and trends that have marked the evolution of painting are touched upon here in varying degrees of detail: Impressionism, Symbolism, Neo-Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Japonisme, Synthetism, the Nabis, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. They reflect the increasing changes imposed on perspective, colour and figuration, as well as the historical context in which they were conceived.

Neo-Impressionism:

The 8th Impressionist exhibition of 1886 marked both the end of this shared adventure and its renewal through the contribution of young artists with a different vision. On that occasion, Georges Seurat exhibited his monumental A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, the very first Neo-Impressionist work as it was designated by Felix Feneon. He was joined in this initiative by Paul Signac, along with Camille and Lucien Pissaro.

Numerous other artists became affiliated with the movement and following the untimely death of Seurat, it was Signac who became the head.

Paul Signac, Avignon, Morning

Paul Signac, Saint-Tropez, After the Storm, 1895, (oil on canvas)

Paul Signac, Asnieres

Paul Signac, Clichy Wharf

In 1887, Signac embarked upon a series of works characteristic of his first Divisionist period. Similar to dots, his brush marks precisely depict the Clichy Wharf.

Paul Signac, Juan-les-Pins, Evening, 1914

Two versions of this work, a preparatory ink study on cardboard, and the subsequent oil painting.

Paul Signac, Saint-Tropez, Place des Lices, 1905, (watercolour enhanced with pen and ink on paper)

Paul Signac, Still Life (Composition with Lemons), 1918, (watercolour on paper)

Henri-Edmond Cross, Cap Negre

Henri-Edmond Cross 

Maximilien Luce, The Coffee, 1892, (oil on canvas)

Here Luce treated a subject he was partial to, that of the life of the working class, and painted a contemporary genre painting.

Maximilien Luce, The Steelworks, 1899, (oil on canvas)

Maximilien Luce, Quai de l'Ecole, Paris, Evening, 1889, (oil on canvas)

Louis Hayet, two small oil paintings, conceived as pendants.

Achile Lauge,  Tree in Blossom

Leon Pourtau, Beach Scene

Beach scene was plainly inspired  by the emblematic A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. The suburban idyll imaged by Seurat has been transposed here to a beach in Normandy.

Lucien Pissarro, Gouvernes, near Lagny, 1888, (oil on canvas)

Theo van Rysselberghe, Canal in Flanders in Gloomy Weather, 1894, (oil on canvas)

Theo van Rysselberghe, Kalf's Mill, 1894, (oil on canvas)

Post-Impressionism:

The term Post-Impressionism characterises a period of modern art rather than any precise artistic movement. Coined by Roger Fry in 1910, it served to designate all the avant-garde trends that were developing in parallel in Paris on the margins of the gradual dissolution of the Impressionist group.

Paul Gauguin, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent van Gogh are today the most illustrious Post-Impressionists. By expanding the horizons opened by their predecessors, they laid claim to a subjectivity in their painting that ignored all convention. 

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Clowness at the Moulin-Rouge, 1897, (lithograph in crayon, pencil and splatter, printed in six colours)

Paul Gauguin, Words of the Devil, 1894, (monotype heightened with watercolour and gouache on Simili Japon paper)

Louis Anquetin,  Interior of Bruant's club: The Mirliton, 1886-87, (oil on canvas)

Among the numerous venues enlivening Parisian nightlife, Louis Anquetin chose to represent the Mirliton, the notorious cabaret founded by Aristide Bruant. Here he gathered together, from left ro right, Francois Gauzi, Emile Bernard, Marie Valette, Louis Weber, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Marcel Legay and Bruant himself.

Louis Valtat, Mothers at the Bois de Bouloghe, 1903, (oil on canvas)

Louis Anquetin, 1887

In 1887 Anquetin's style developed radically. Forms were simplified, flat patches of bold colours were outlined in thick black contours that evoke  both Medieval stained glass and enamels as well as Japanese woodcut prints. He influenced Vincent van Gogh, who drew inspiration from this composition for his Terrace of a Cafe at Night at Arles in 1888.

French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism at the National Museum of Art, Cardiff .

Thanks to the Davies sisters Cardiff Museum has a substantial collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. Gwendoline Davies and Margaret Davies amassed one of the great British art collections of the 20th century. Together, they bequeathed 260 works to the National Museum of Wales in 1951 and 1962, completely transforming its art collection in character, quality and range.

Camille Pissarro, Sunset, the Port of Rouen Steamboats, 1898, (oil on canvas)

Camille Pissarro, Pont Neuf, Snow Effect, 2nd series, 1902, (oil on canvas)

The Pont Neuf was one of the busiest bridges in central Paris. The pavements are crowded with people carrying umbrellas while carriages and an early motorcar drive past through the snow. This wintry image is one of 14 painted by Pisarrro of this location. He avoided the problems of working outdoors by renting rooms overlooking the river. This also accounts for the high viewpoint.

Edouard Manet, The Rabbit, 1881, (oil on canvas)

Intended as one of four decorative panels, this work displays a bold, loose style. Completed in the final years of his life, the painting contrasts greatly with Manet's earlier, more conventional compositions of dead game. The work was rejected by the 1882 Salon Exhibition.

Claude Monet, The Thames at London, 1871, (oil on canvas)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Young Girl in Blue, 1883, (oil on canvas)

Although this study is unfinished, Renoir's brushwork appears more firmly defined than in earlier works. It was painted at a time when Renoir was reconsidering his technique and looking to works by the Old Masters for inspiration. The bright colours painted onto a white background are, however, still distinctly characteristic of Impressionism.

Edouard Manet, Effects of Snow at Petit-Montrouge, 1870

Edouard Degas, Dressed Dancer, 1879080, (bronze)

Degas wanted the dancer to look as real as possible and dressed the finished version in a linen corset and tutu.

Auguste Rodin, The Kiss, 1887, (bronze)

Vincent Van Gogh, Rain, Auvers, 1890, (oil on canvas)

The lashing rain, vigorous brushwork and contrasting colours express Van Gogh's emotional turmoil at a time of deep personal depression. The wide panoramic format is typical of the group of wheat-field paintings which he produced in June to July 1890, shortly before he shot himself. He wrote to his brother Theo: 'they depict vast, distended wheat fields under angry skies, the I deliberately tried to express sadness and extreme loneliness in them'. The crows circling at the centre seem particularly foreboding.

Auguste Rodin, Eve, 1881-1890s (bronze)

Hiding her face in her arms and cowering in shame, Eve is depicted at the moment that god expressed her from the garden of Eden. Rodin described the difficulty he had sculpting the figure's pelvis. He discovered later that his model was pregnant and felt it added further significance to the subject portrayal.

Claude Monet, Waterlillies, 1906, (oil on canvas)

Claude Monet, Waterlillies, 1906, (oil on canvas)

Claude Monet, The Palazzo Dario, 1908, (oil on canvas)

Claude Monet, San Giorgo Magghiore by Twilight, 1908, (oil on canvas)

Paul Cezanne, Provencal Landscape, 1887-88, (oil on canvas)

'I wanted to make of Impressionism something solid and enduring like the art in museums'.

This simple woodland scene demonstrates Cezanne's complex artistic theories. Contrasting colours and brushstrokes painted in different directions toy with our sense of space and depth. He wanted to create an illusion of form as well as light.

Paul Cezanne, The Francois Zola Dam, 1879, (oil on canvas)

Cezanne's intricate S-shaped composition leads us through the landscape to the high summit of Mont-Saint-Victoire. The blue waters and grey wall of the dam are nestled into the greens and yellow forms of the sunbaked rocky hillside.

Claude Monet, San Giorgio Maggiore, 1908, (oil on canvas)