A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte

Working through the styles in turn:

Post-impressionism

This style is definitely descended from the Impressionists, except perhaps for the method of paint application, as shown in Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (Harris & Zucker, n.d.), for example. Another difference is the use of light, which can lack a sense of atmosphere, as opposed to Impressionists creating atmosphere with light. Some artists, such as Gauguin, created a sense of mystery and a dream-like space, which was also different from Impressionists.

Descending traits tended to be such elements as, making certain objects or figures have a compositional function in order to pull the viewer into the scene, or cleverly separate us from different activities

I would say after reading many articles the last few weeks, that if one combines Impressionism with Romanticism, Post-Impressionism is pretty much the result. :-)

Fauvism

Artists tended to choose to shy away from Impressionism’s representational and realistic values, and they also introduced stronger colors in their work, although the purity of colors were similar to that of Impressionists. I find Fauvism hard to generalize, as the artists tended to have different views politically, socially, etc. and although many of the artists banded around Matisse, there was no unified statement from them all, as such.

Similarities to Impressionism are such elements as, emphasizing nature as an important subject matter, but there are also many differences, one such being that Fauvists likes to paint in what can be described as broken marks. These individual dabs of paint did not create the sense of changing light, which the Impressionists so often used. Furthermore, the dabs tended to be in contrasting colors, which prevented atmospheric space and light illusions in the

Braque and Picasso led the way, after being so influenced by the master artist, Cézanne. Impressionism had broken away from the expected traditional style of painting, and I would say that Cubism did the same thing, thereby expressing everyday life in a different way. Each style saw critics and the public finding it hard to accept their departure away from traditions.

Another similarity that carried on through to the Cubism style was the Impressionists’ use of time in their paintings. In contrast, Cubism saw artists expressing the human form in different ways that had never been seen before. Picasso’s triangular angles, and paintings that show every angle of looking at a subject (or object) must have been amazingly unique back in his day, no wonder people were hesitant to accept it, or like it (nothing changes in society – everyone is scared of change, until it is finally embraced!) :-)