Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. Not commercially successful, he struggled with severe depression and poverty, eventually leading to his suicide at age thirty-seven.
Georges Pierre Seurat was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough surface.
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image.
Paul Victor Jules Signac was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style.
Neo-Impressionism is a term coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat's most renowned masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, marked the beginning of this movement when it first made its appearance at an exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris. Around this time, the peak of France's modern era emerged and many painters were in search of new methods. Followers of Neo-Impressionism, in particular, were drawn to modern urban scenes as well as landscapes and seashores. Science-based interpretation of lines and colors influenced Neo-Impressionists' characterization of their own contemporary art. The Pointillist and Divisionist techniques are often mentioned in this context, because they were the dominant techniques in the beginning of the Neo-impressionist movement.
Armand Guillaumin was a French impressionist painter and lithographer.
Charles Angrand was a French artist who gained renown for his Neo-Impressionist paintings and drawings. He was an important member of the Parisian avant-garde art scene in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
Achille-Émile Othon Friesz, who later called himself Othon Friesz, a native of Le Havre, was a French artist of the Fauvist movement.
Divisionism, also called chromoluminarism, was the characteristic style in Neo-Impressionist painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically.
Vincent van Gogh's display at the 1890 Les XX exhibition in Brussels, Belgium, was important for several reasons. First, Van Gogh's inclusion in the annual Les XX exhibition—an invitation-only show for members only—demonstrated the recognition he received from his avant-garde peers during his lifetime. Second, his choices of works and their arrangement illustrate his thinking about his years of work in Provence.
Luxe, Calme et Volupté is a 1904 oil painting by the French artist Henri Matisse. Both foundational in the oeuvre of Matisse and a pivotal work in the history of art, Luxe, Calme et Volupté is considered the starting point of Fauvism. This painting is a dynamic and vibrant work created early on in his career as a painter. It displays an evolution of the Neo-Impressionist style mixed with a new conceptual meaning based in fantasy and leisure that had not been seen in works before.
Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of les Fauves, a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1904 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1905–1908, and had three exhibitions. The leaders of the movement were André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Henri Matisse.
Hippolyte Petitjean was a French Post-Impressionist painter who practiced the technique of pointillism.
The Lagoon of Saint Mark, Venice is an oil on canvas painting by Paul Signac. This painting focuses on a seascape image which became a common theme late in Signac's life.
Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange (1877–1958) was a French neo-impressionist painter who used the art technique of pointillism with her main themes of flowers and gardens. Her painting, Garden at La Lune, Saint-Tropez (1909), shows her signature use of “high-key colors and block-like strokes.”
Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890 is an 1890 oil painting by French artist Paul Signac. The Neo-impressionist work depicts the French art critic Félix Fénéon standing in front of a swirling coloured background. It has been held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1991.
Sailboats and Estuary is an oil on canvas painting by Belgian painter Théo van Rysselberghe. Painted around 1887, it shows a coastal landscape elaborated in a Pointillist technique. Van Rysselberghe probably adopted the Pointillist manner after befriending Signac; however, the use of color in Sailboats and Esuary is nonetheless far more realistic than in paintings by Signac and other Neo-Impressionists, and reveals a tendency towards naturalism. The artwork has been in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris since 1982, on loan from the Louvre.
Barques de pêche–Méditerranée is an oil on canvas painting by Belgian painter Théo van Rysselberghe. Painted in 1892, it depicts a fleet of sailboats off the southern coast of France. Van Rysselberghe's pontillist technique is well expressed in this work, whose wooden liner was painted with dots of contrasting hues serving to amplify the color harmonies in the canvas. The painting was realized by Van Rysselberghe during a two-month sailing excursion in le Midi with his close friends Paul Signac, and it offers visual representation of that sailing journey.
L'Escaut en amont d'Anvers, le soir or An Evening is an oil on canvas painting by Belgian painter Théo van Rysselberghe. Painted in 1892, the painting is considered a very good example of Van Rysselberghe's pointillist technique, which, by the time he painted this oeuvre, had been completely absorbed and adjusted by the Belgian artist.
Cassis, Cap Lombard, Opus 196 is an oil on canvas painting of 1889 by the French artist Paul Signac. It depicts the village of Cassis. He was very enthused with the landscape; he made five paintings in Cassis. Signac described this painting in a letter to Vincent van Gogh: "White, blue, orange, harmonically dispersed in pretty undulations. All around mountains with rhythmic curves."
