1. Georges Seurat – Seurat is a french painter from Paris, France who has gone down in history as one of the most well known and major post-impressionists. He received his training at art schools in France where he was classically trained. After his studies, Seurat spent some time serving the military, before returning to work under the guidance of such influences as Delacroix, in order to develop his style of color use.
One of his most well known pieces is entitled Bathers at Asnières (left). This work was painted in 1883 depicting common folk laying out and bathing by a river in a Paris suburb. The people are meant to be a representation of the working class relaxing after a day of labor. One of the major important factors of Seurat’s work is his use of color.
He generally uses dots of different colors instead of fully blending them so that from afar your eye blends the colors for you and absorbs the picture they present. For example, the the grass of this painting there is dots of yellow speckled among the different shades of dark and light green that emphasize the tone of the grass as a whole. There seems to be a glow of white around the characters standing in the water and the one with his feet dipped in. This separates their colors from those around them. The colors, while being varied, are not overwhelmingly bright but rather a more calming and soft tone. The figures are very pale and the source of light is indistinct. Their serene setting directly contrasts the factories billowing smoke in the background, seemingly making a statement about the modern day workforce laying just on the horizon of any downtime.
Another famous work of Seurat’s is his piece entitled A River Bank (The Seine at Asnières) (right) which was earlier in his career, dated 1883. It displays a shockingly huge difference in his style and showcases just how far his work developed from the more classic impressionist style of this piece. Here it can be seen how the colors blend into one another such as the green yellow color blending between the sky and trees. There is also far less subject matter to look at. Unlike the people in the first piece, this just shows a general landscape with a red and white pole as the only noticeably different aspect to be drawn to.
2. Paul Gauguin– Paul Gauguin, full name Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin, was born and raised in Paris France as well as Peru and was also a major painter of the post impressionist movement. He began pursuing painting as a hobby increased after his broken family life and marriage. He began working with Van Gogh and his work went unappreciated until after his death.
One significant work to touch upon (shown above) is entitled Harvest: Le Pouldu, painted in 1890. It depicts the village landscape surrounding a boarding house he stayed in. It is a prime example of his synthetist style. One of the most interesting aspects of this piece is how Gauguin painted the hills in the background. The and sectioned by thick lines separating the different shades of browns and greens. Gauguin uses color to create form in his pieces in this way. All of the figured in the painting lack detail and are made to have fluid movement rather than being structured. This can be contrasted to the works of the pre-raphaelites that used intensive detail in all of their pieces. The painting overall suggests the simplicity of real life, particularly within this rural village.
3. Vincent van Gogh– van Gogh was born in The Netherlands but later worked in England and France. He came from a family heavily rooted in the arts and religion so it is no surprise that van Gogh himself took up one of them as a career later in his life. He is considered the icon of post-impressionist work and to this day is one of the most world renown painters of all time. His entire life history, including his dissent into madness has been docmented and studied many numbers of times throughout the years.
One of his most famous works is Van Gogh’s Chair (left) painted in 1888. It depicts a chair from van Gogh’s home that he shared with Paul Gauguin at the time. He also painted a similar work that showed Gauguin’s chair, often said to show the contrast in living aspects between the two artists. The piece shows a frequently recurring subject of van Gogh’s works that is everyday objects from life. It also demonstrates the imperfect perspective of his works. Judging by the size and positioning of the legs of the chair and the warped appearance of the floor tiles, it is hard to grasp exactly how this chair is sitting. Van Gogh also loved outlining objects in different colors. In this piece, where the chair meets the blue walls, the outline is brown, and where the chair meets the brown flooring, the outline is blue.
Another significant piece of van Gogh’s is entitled Sunflowers, also painted in 1888. It applies a classic impasto style by the thicker areas of paint in the darker parts of the sunflowers. It follows a simple color scheme of shades of yellows and some greens, but still incorporates van Gogh’s classic blue outline. And again it shows van Gogh’s passion for painting everyday objects.