Impressionism and Post-impressionism what's the difference?

Richard Shiff’s “Cezanne and the End of Impression” delves into the idea and history over the trouble of naming Post-Impressionism, just that. Similar to all the other art movements post-impressionism came as reaction to Impressionism and the rules that it had formed (even though they were breaking away from the rules). Expressionism seemed to fit “the spirit of the younger generation” (155), but ultimately post-impressionism was chosen to due chronologic order. But just like the Impressionist, post-impressionist searched to communicate their expression through their art. But Impressionist chose to “simplify and even ‘distort’ the objects they represent” (158). Cezanne seemed to embody post-impressionist value to make painting even more basic and focus more on the shapes than Impressionist. I didn’t think that paintings could get more shape basic, but as many of these articles have proven me wrong it has.
Cezanne chose to make a drastic move (at least it was seen drastic then) and made crude and distorted paintings than the previously refinement natural paintings. He chose to “go back” in a more primitive quality of painting. I understand why it was criticized as primitive now understanding the course of paintings. The Renaissance had seen moving toward a much more precise and scientific form of painting and the Impressionists completely changed that and Cezanne continued to push the limitations of art. But I admire Cezanne for doing so, for making art so fluid and allowing it to move “back” (however you chose to see it) or any direction that it is. Shiff mentions that Cezanne left paintings unsigned or without a date, in varying degrees of finished and repainted canvas with one image that had nothing to do with the previous painting painted over it. This excited me that he did not try to fit into a time period or movement, he wrote his own rules; which to me seems like a true artist. Unlike “Paris Street Rainy Day” by Gustave Caillebotte which tried to fit into the Impressionist movement, Cezanne was not trying to fit into a movement but had one created by critics to keep the paintings in order.
Although there is said to be a difference between Impressionism and post-impressionism Shiff’s argument that Cezanne had hastily applied strokes, sketchy and unfinished quality to images, does not clarify this for me. I thought that was what Impression was also, so I have difficulty in understanding the difference. Cezanne’s paintings are said to be “flat” with a uniform intensity of hue and a lack of value gradation but his images seem to mix in with the works labeled Impressionist. So what is the real difference upon first impression because I cannot see it?

Seeing Cezanne

The division between Impressionism and Post-Impressionism seems somewhat contrived. It's as if the line was arbitrarily drawn down the middle of a larger movement of art, and the details of the distinction filled in later to justify the line. The cyclic nature of artistic rebellions is not apparent here; at least, not nearly as apparent as the reaction of the Impressionists against classical artwork, or as drastic as the invention of Cartesian perspective. Instead of a dramatic reaction, the progression from Impressionism to Post-Impressionism is fairly smooth. The gaps between the "diametrically opposed"(160) principles of each movement are bridged easily by Cezanne.
The main difference seems to be the idea of representation versus expression. In both cases it is a matter of the artist's intent. If two artists create a nearly identical piece of artwork, but with radically different intentions, either to represent or express, how can the viewer differentiate the two without knowing the intent of either artist? Which is more important in classifying artwork, the artist's intent or the viewer's interpretation?

There is a conflict over what to call the movement of painting after impressionism. Expressionism was taken, so “post-impressionism” was chosen . And while expressionism was considered “an ugly world” (Shiff 157) it was less ugly than post-impressionism. Why the chasm and need for separation from impressionists to post-impressionists? In Fry’s “Essay in Aesthetics” he makes the claim that “one only comes to know emotion only through expression”. How was emotion not “known” in the impressionist’s works, or rather how was it not expressive? I don’t claim that the post-impressionists, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin’s work is not different from Manet and the impressionists; I simply do not see the distinction based on Fry’s premises.
In the post-impressionist catalog essay, it is stated “…there comes a point when the accumulation of an increasing skill in mere representation begin to destroy the expressiveness of the design.” This can be considered a critique on the impressionists for creating more “representations” in comparison to the increasingly "expressive" designs of the post-impressionists. I find this point difficult to see, in fact, post-impressionists seems a step further that the impressionists from the coveted “emotion” quality they strive for in that impressionists attempted to capture the primal feeling itself in their paintings -their natural, unborn, unprocessed emotions in response to a subject. As I understand it, the post-impressionists in doing more on the canvas, are utilizing more acquired skill, and make the end forms less emotionally expressive, as it where.
The post-impressionist argument to this call is that they not only express the artist’s personal associations in art, but the artists themsleves attempt to capture the feelings that subject itself evokes, separate from the artist. They, in effect, “make” the subject into an emotional source as opposed to simply reflecting on an object and transmitting any emotion.
I believe the distinction here is that while impressionists tackle the problem of transmitting a subject and allowing its emotion to form or not form in the viewers mind, the post-impressionists relay intentionality, meaning there is a prescribed emotional quality they seek, produce, and express. In this, I believe that the “knowing emotion” of Fry’s original premise becomes an elusive moldable abstraction, in that it is up to the artists subjective to fashion emotion as they please and diverts further from a known, truthful, emotion. I imagine the ideas of truth in art will be covered later, but these arguments led me to discuss them here.

From the onset of this course we have been encouraged to view the articles from different perspectives- presumably ones that we are more familiar with. Because chapter 12, The Cezanne Legend, portrays Cezanne as a wildly eccentric individual, I chose to analyze his character. Through academics, my family and personal experience I am well acquainted with mental illness and therefore felt it was appropriate to note the peculiar behaviors and elements of his personality that might lead researchers to a better understanding of Cezanne and his works.

From the evidence provided in this article one might consider that Cezanne may have suffered from a mental illness. The initial description of an "...odd and mysteriously incommunicative..." (162) person who remained isolated and showed little concern for others touched on some major points of autism. However, in order to achieve the status and skill that Cezanne attained he would have had to have been a savant or possibly ridiculously high functioning.

An explanation that more appropriately addresses Cezanne's quirks is bipolar disorder. Shiff attributed Cezanne's isolation to the fortune he had inheritted because due to the that money he did not need to depend on selling his art. However, bipolar disorder is the only mental illness that is more prevalent in this with higher socioeconomic standing and is also directly correlated with creativity. It is also mentioned that many of Cezanne's paintings have been left incomplete or in "...varying states of finish..."(162). This behavior is typical of someone in a manic episode. In phase one or phase two mania an individual may make grandious plans or start many projects- often times this results in chaos and the projects are eventually abandoned. Once an individual reaces phase three or four mania, their symptoms ressemble those of schizophrenia. Cezanne's bizarre behavior towards other people could easily be explained if he did in fact suffer from bipolar disorder. Cezanne distrusted the public, harbored deep suspicion and paranoia about other artists and lead a seemingly unstable life.

Perhaps there was nothing wrong with Cezanne afterall. Maybe he was just a quirky guy, however, the evidence lends a lot to think about.

Cezanne and the End of Impressionism

Richard Shiff introduces the post-impressionist era, suggesting that by the very nature of the title it rebelled against impressionist ideals despite the many similarities.  Cezanne is universally recognized as the precursor of the post-impressionists, who focused on expression rather than the representation of their predecessors.  In an essay, Roger Fry argues that "there comes a point when the accumulations of an increasing skill in mere representation begin to destroy the expressiveness of the design" (157).  This notion is reiterated throughout the several chapters with the post-impressionist obsession with Cezanne and his primordial perspective.  His art pieces were characterized with humans painted at awkward angles and lacked any sense of depth.  Contemporaries argued that this "primordial visual sensation" was the "most immediate and spontaneous effect to be observed" (172).  This was in contrast to the academic style of the modern artist, who saw nature unoriginally and was able to construct paintings solely based on technical conventions.  While I follow along with this argument, I do not completely understand the main premise behind it.  Why does an increase in the primitiveness of a painting increase its expressive value?  Are realistic paintings unable to convey the same emotions, the same symbols that an incomplete painting lacking depth can?

There are frequent references to Cezanne as the Poussin of impressionism.  However, the similarities between the two artists do not arise in their stylistic and artistic methods but "their attitudes toward art and nature and to the historical past and present" (184).  Poussin is praised for his return to classical ideals in his effort to maintain originality and his rejection of modern "degenerate" art.  Similarly, Cezanne, with his strange and awkward style, rejected modern ideals with his primitive perspective.  Both artists had examined previous artistic styles and it was this knowledge that enabled them to express their own style and originality.  

Through his distortions of reality, Cezanne revolutionized art as modern contemporaries became increasingly obsessed with the primordial vision and rebelling against modern standards.  Interestingly, in Cezanne's paintings all of the distorted images were painted like that as opposed to the deformation of an already created object.  This distorted reality seems akin to the impressionist idea of spontaneous sensation.  

Lastly, this is one particular quote that I found thought provoking: "(Gustave) Geffroy asked how one could determine when a painting was 'finished,' how one could ever terminate the image, the recording of sensation, if life itself, the life of sensation, continued on without end" (193).  Cezanne devoted his life to finding a method to record this expression, which proved unattainable.

Cezanne: A “Spontaneous Classic”

When the Impressionist painters rebelled against the Academic art establishment in France they effectively threw out the old rule books and guide books dominating the old world. Thus, the artists and critics who succeeded them were left to try to develop new systems for classifying, judging, and practicing art. However, it seems as if the harder they tried to define art and the artists, the more contradictions, paradoxes, and gray areas they found. In many ways, Cezanne embodies these conflicts, which made him especially hard to classify and ultimately Richard Shiff does not definitively place Cezanne in either the Impressionists or Post-impressionists but calls him a link or continuation between them.

Overall, the most problematic issue seems to revolve around the competing forces of the “unconscious” and the “conscious.” For example, references are made to Cezanne’s unconscious and spontaneous expressiveness, and his gaucherie and distortions are linked to his position as a “primitive” who sees the world in a very simple and sincere way. And yet we see that Cezanne is also called a classic (in the syle of 17th C. painter Poussin) and Shiff also shows how Cezanne studied past art, developed a loose theory about sensation, and actively manipulated techniques and color to achieve his originality. Despite the contemporary critic’s statements about the unconscious, Shiff argues that the conscious side of the artist actually plays a huge role in the creation of original art as artists cannot “escape being self-conscious” and that “Cezanne’s technique (as well as that of so many of his contemporaries) developed in accord with specific intentions, indeed, as a response to ‘statements’ made by the techniques of other painters.”

I agree with Shiff on this point because it seems as if the critics of the time went a bit overboard in their rejection of Academic artificiality when they started labeling Cezanne as a man of “genius” and “unaccountable originality” whose work seems to have been done “almost unconsciously”. Also I find their obsession with the “primitive” kind of strange, though I’m sure it’s linked to turn of the century ideas about race and evolution.

Expressionism?

Richard Shiff opens Part Three of his book by talking about the importance and the consequential difficulty of assigning an appropriate name to what we now call “Postimpressionism” era. Toward the end of the recognized Monet-impressionism era, new generation of younger artists emerged who rebelled against the impressionism era, criticizing it for its lack of expression. Shiff goes into an extensive discussion about how art critics could not decide on a label for these new artists, caught in between “expressionism” and “postimpressionism,” especially in regards to Cezanne. What made this new generation of artists more expressive than their predecessors such as Monet and Renoir? What was so different about their style of painting that Fry, an English art critic and an artist himself, thought they deserved to be called “expressionists”?

Shiff says that “‘Accurate’ representation, characterized by similitude, may mask or diminish feeling; and conversely, ‘true’ expression may deform representation” (137). I understand his point. I think it’s important that he uses the word “may,” leaving room for the exceptions; accurate representation of a very emotional event is not necessarily any less artistic than a distorted and perplexing representation. But what is this ‘true’ expression? I don’t really understand the perspective of the postimpressionists. They pride in their ability to deliver their expressions on to canvas, because they paint what they feel and see; isn’t that virtually what the impressionists did, with the whole significance on unadulterated fleeting glances of the naïve eye? I do see the departure in artistic technical style from impressionism to postimpressionism but I feel like the ideologies of both eras overlap so much that I don’t really see the point of splitting them up.

Shiff persistently refers to Cezanne’s primitive qualities in his painting. The lack of fanciful and intricate details, and perspective depth (there is a constant mention of this “flatness” in his canvas) and the presence of distortions seem to characterize Cezanne’s art. His gravitation toward the use of strong contrasts in color and the fondness of bright spectral colors also seem to bring his art down to an earthy, “primitive” level. It seems like Cezanne’s painting is a lot bolder and more straightforward than the gentle and ethereal impressionist paintings.

I don’t really have room for discussion of this particular quote, but it stood out to me as particularly bizarre; “Here, in accord with a modernist aesthetic, the artist’s value lies not so much in what he can make, but in his capacity to seek and to continue to find.” This raises an interesting question. Are artists seekers more than creators?