Post-impressionism

1 definition found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Post-impressionism \Post`-im*pres"sion*ism\, n. (Painting)
     In the broadest sense, the theory or practice of any of
     several groups of painters of the early 1900's, or of these
     groups taken collectively, whose work and theories have in
     common a tendency to reaction against the scientific and
     naturalistic character of impressionism and


     neo-impressionism. In a strict sense the term
     post-impressionism is used to denote the effort at
     self-expression, rather than representation, shown in the
     work of C['e]zanne, Matisse, etc.; but it is more broadly
     used to include cubism, the theory or practice of a movement
     in both painting and sculpture which lays stress upon volume
     as the important attribute of objects and attempts its
     expression by the use of geometrical figures or solids only;
     and futurism, a theory or practice which attempts to place
     the observer within the picture and to represent
     simultaneously a number of consecutive movements and
     impressions. In practice these theories and methods of the
     post-impressionists change with great rapidity and shade into
     one another, so that a picture may be both cubist and
     futurist in character. They tend to, and sometimes reach, a
     condition in which both representation and traditional
     decoration are entirely abolished and a work of art becomes a
     purely subjective expression in an arbitrary and personal
     language.
     [Webster 1913 Suppl.]