Editing Post-Impressionism (section)

==Defining Post-Impressionism==
[[File:Affiche Volpini.jpg|thumb|left|Poster of the 1889 Exhibition of Paintings by the [[Impressionist]] and [[Synthetism|Synthetist Group]], at Café des Arts, known as [[The Volpini Exhibition, 1889]]]]
[[Image:Lautrecx07.jpg|thumb|[[Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec]], ''Portrait of [[Émile Bernard (painter)|Émile Bernard]]'', 1886, [[Tate Gallery]] [[London]]]]
The term was used in 1906,<ref name="brettell" /><ref name="Morrin et al" /> and again in 1910 by [[Roger Fry]] in the title of an exhibition of modern French painters: ''Manet and the Post-Impressionists'', organized by Fry for the [[Grafton Galleries]] in London.<ref name="MoMA" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/manetpostimpress00graf|title=Manet and the post-impressionists; Nov. 8th to Jan. 15th, 1910-11... (under revision)|first=London|last=Grafton Galleries|date=March 31, 1910|publisher=London : Ballantyne|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Three weeks before Fry's show, art critic [[Frank Rutter]] had put the term ''Post-Impressionist'' in print in ''Art News'' of 15 October 1910, during a review of the [[Salon d'Automne]], where he described [[Othon Friesz]] as a "post-impressionist leader"; there was also an advert in the journal for the show ''The Post-Impressionists of France''.<ref name=bullen />

Most of the artists in Fry's exhibition were younger than the Impressionists. Fry later explained: "For purposes of convenience, it was necessary to give these artists a name, and I chose, as being the vaguest and most non-committal, the name of Post-Impressionism. This merely stated their position in time relatively to the Impressionist movement."<ref>Gowing, Lawrence (2005). ''Facts on File Encyclopedia of Art'': 5. New York: Facts on File, p. 804. {{ISBN|0-8160-5802-4}}</ref> [[John Rewald]] limited the scope to the years between 1886 and 1892 in his pioneering publication on ''Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin'' (1956). Rewald considered this a continuation of his 1946 study, ''History of Impressionism'', and pointed out that a "subsequent volume dedicated to the second half of the post-impressionist period":<ref name="Rewald 1978, p. 9">Rewald, John: ''Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin'', revised edition: Secker & Warburg, London, 1978, p. 9.</ref> ''Post-Impressionism: From Gauguin to Matisse'', was to follow. This volume would extend the period covered to other artistic movements derived from Impressionism, though confined to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rewald focused on such outstanding early Post-Impressionists active in France as [[van Gogh]], [[Gauguin]], [[Seurat]], and [[Odilon Redon|Redon]]. He explored their relationships as well as the artistic circles they frequented (or were in opposition to), including:
* [[Neo-Impressionism]]: ridiculed by contemporary art critics as well as artists as [[Pointillism]]; [[Georges-Pierre Seurat|Seurat]] and [[Paul Signac|Signac]] would have preferred other terms: [[Divisionism]] for example
* [[Cloisonnism]]: a short-lived term introduced in 1888 by the art critic [[Édouard Dujardin]], was to promote the work of [[Louis Anquetin]], and was later also applied to contemporary works of his friend [[Émile Bernard (painter)|Émile Bernard]]
* [[Synthetism]]: another short-lived term coined in 1889 to distinguish recent works of Gauguin and Bernard from that of more traditional Impressionists exhibiting with them at the [[The Volpini Exhibition, 1889|Café Volpini]].
* [[Pont-Aven School]]: implying little more than that the artists involved had been working for a while in Pont-Aven or elsewhere in Brittany.
* [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]]: a term highly welcomed by vanguard critics in 1891, when Gauguin dropped Synthetism as soon as he was acclaimed to be the leader of Symbolism in painting.
Furthermore, in his introduction to Post-Impressionism, Rewald opted for a second volume featuring [[Toulouse-Lautrec]], [[Henri Rousseau]] "le Douanier", [[Les Nabis]] and [[Cézanne]] as well as the [[Fauvism|Fauves]], the young [[Picasso]] and Gauguin's last trip to the [[South Sea Islands|South Seas]]; it was to expand the period covered at least into the first decade of the 20th century—yet this second volume remained unfinished.
[[Image:Camille Pissarro 016.jpg|thumb|[[Camille Pissarro]], ''Haying at Eragny,'' 1889, Private Collection]]

===Reviews and adjustments===
Rewald wrote that "the term 'Post-Impressionism' is not a very precise one, though a very convenient one"; convenient, when the term is by definition limited to French visual arts derived from Impressionism since 1886.  Rewald's approach to historical data was narrative rather than analytic, and beyond this point he believed it would be sufficient to "let the sources speak for themselves."<ref name="Rewald 1978, p. 9"/>

Rival terms like [[Modernism]] or [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolism]] were never as easy to handle, for they covered literature, architecture and other arts as well, and they expanded to other countries.

* [[Modernism]], thus, is now considered to be the central movement within ''international'' western civilization with its original roots in France, going back beyond the [[French Revolution]] to the [[Age of Enlightenment]].
* [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]], however, is considered to be a concept which emerged a century later in France, and implied an individual approach. Local national traditions as well as individual settings therefore could stand side by side, and from the very beginning a broad variety of artists practicing some kind of symbolic imagery, ranged between extreme positions: [[The Nabis]] for example united to find synthesis of tradition and brand new form, while others kept to traditional, more or less academic forms, when they were looking for fresh contents: Symbolism is therefore often linked to fantastic, esoteric, erotic and other non-realist subject matter.

To meet the recent discussion, the connotations of the term 'Post-Impressionism' were challenged again: [[Alan Bowness]] and his collaborators expanded the period covered forward to 1914 and the beginning of [[World War I]], but limited their approach widely on the 1890s to France. Other European countries are pushed back to standard connotations, and Eastern Europe is completely excluded.

In Germany, it was [[Paul Baum (artist)|Paul Baum]] and [[Carl Schmitz-Pleis]] who, in retrospect, provided the decisive impetus.<ref>''Christie's Review of the Season''. 1986, p. 11.</ref>

So, while a split may be seen between classical 'Impressionism' and 'Post-Impressionism' in 1886, the end and the extent of 'Post-Impressionism' remains under discussion. For Bowness and his contributors as well as for Rewald, '[[Cubism]]' was an absolutely fresh start, and so Cubism has been seen in France since the beginning, and later in England. Meanwhile, Eastern European artists, however, did not care so much for western traditions, and proceeded to manners of painting called [[Abstract painting|abstract]] and [[Suprematism|suprematic]]—terms expanding far into the 20th century.

According to the present state of discussion, ''Post-Impressionism'' is a term best used within Rewald's definition in a strictly historical manner, concentrating on French art between 1886 and 1914, and re-considering the altered positions of ''[[Impressionists|impressionist]]'' painters like [[Claude Monet]], [[Camille Pissarro]], [[Auguste Renoir]], and others—as well as all new schools and movements at the turn of the century: from [[Cloisonnism]] to [[Cubism]]. The declarations of war, in July/August 1914, indicate probably far more than the beginning of a [[World War I|World War]]—they signal a major break in European cultural history, too.

Along with general art history information given about "Post-Impressionism" works, there are many museums that offer additional history, information and gallery works, both online and in house, that can help viewers understand a deeper meaning of "Post-Impressionism" in terms of fine art and traditional art applications.