Post-impressionism and Van Gogh

The postimpressionism is an artistic movement that several critics used to illustrate the work of various artists such as Van gogh (1853-1890), one of the most influential post-impressionist painters of the 20th century, especially in expressionism. And it is that post-impressionism was a movement of a group of individual artists, coinciding in the aim to seek a more ambitious expression of light and color than the impressionists had. A style that preceded abstraction and was the basis for the avant-garde styles of the 20th century.

In this lesson from a TEACHER we offer you a Summary on Post-Impressionism and Van Gogh as a prominent figure the movement to show you the enormous influence of this iconic artist in this movement and later.

Vincent van Gogh is considered one of the best artists of the 20th century, one of the most influential, but, above all, the most personal and emotional. Van Gogh's biographers speak of a tortured and obsessive person, an artist dedicated to transmitting his emotional and spiritual state on his canvases. An attitude that explains his prolific artistic production.

Thus, Van Gogh painted more than 900 canvases and made 1,100 drawings and sketches,in addition to a similar number of letters and cards in which he also used to include sketches of his works. And although he only sold one painting in his entire life, his work achieved enormous influence, becoming a true icon and one of the most popular artists.

«I cannot change the fact that my paintings are not sold. However, time will cause people to recognize that my paintings are worth more than the value of the paintings used in them. "

His works not only inspired and defined the postimpressionism, his imprint is very clear in many other movements such as the fauvism or the german expressionism, Abstract Expressionism or in the Neo-Expressionism of the 1980s, such as Eric Fischl and Julian Schnabel. In addition to music and cinema, several films have inspired his life and his vision of his art, such as The madman with red hair (Lust for life), from 1956 and directed by Vicente Minnelli.

Van Gogh's post-impressionist style

Among the most outstanding characteristics of Van Gogh's artistic style and that influenced Postimpressionism and in the rest of the artists and movements we can point out:

• Their rough, thick, slanted, textured brushstrokes and with a technique, that of Impasto, in which Van Gogh was innovative. This is a technique aimed at adding dimension to the paintings, using thick and diluted brushstrokes.
• A bright and opulent color palette, full of symbolic values, and whose objective is to emphasize the personal expression of the painter, even reaching a random use of color.
• Thus, each canvas shows how the artist sees each scene and interprets it mentally and emotionally. A very personal and evocative style that manages to connect with the viewer, transmitting a multitude of feelings and emotions. In the artist's words: "Paintings have a life of their own that is derived from the painter's soul"
• Use of fcurved, imprecise and distorted shapes of some objects to transmit energy and emotion.
• Another of his characteristics is transmit that spirituality and those inner feelings to nature that he captures on the canvas, thus creating pulsating scenes in which all objects convey such intense feelings.
• The most common subjects are nature and his own life, captured in the many self-portraits that he made. Some self-portraits that he made when he did not have the means to pay models, but in which he showed his psychological state.
• The painter's psychological instability was his source of inspiration and shows his deepest reflections and emotions. That same temperament and the sad end of him, the artist committed suicide in 1890, made Van Gogh an icon and image of the bohemian artist, tortured and self-destructive.

Among his most outstanding post-impressionist works and with great repercussion in the history of art we find La noche Starry (1889), The Sunflowers (1888), Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (1887) and The Bedroom of Arles (1888), between many others.