Today, we began class by discussing Post-Impressionism. We talked about two different aspects of it; the first is form, as seen with Cezanne and Seurat. The second is personal expression, as seen with Van Gogh and Gauguin. We began by comparing Paul Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire and Mont Sainte-Victoire and the viaduct of the Arc River Valley. We can appreciate the depth of the field within these works. They also appear to capture different light effects as they are different moments with different conditions. Additionally, there is not much difference between the two; for example, the color scheme is the same. We also know that the seasons do not change that much in the South of France. We see beautiful weather with evergreen trees. Furthermore, the work is flat, and the brush strokes are hard to forget. It is less illusionistic. We then discussed what Cezanne declared, “I want to do Poussin over again from Nature”. This refers to him wanting to do work orderly and harmonious. He also wishes to illustrate timeless pictures. Cezanne also states that he wishes to “treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone”. We then looked at some of Cezanne’s still lives: Basket of Apples, Still Life with Apples in a Bowl, and Still Life with Peppermint Bottle. It was interesting to know that because apples spoiled fast, Cezanne actually used fake fruit to keep the form and composition of the work he was painting together. His approach was very time-consuming, and in the works, we see this cloth that falls off the table. This evokes a sort of three-dimensional point of view. There are also many commonalities between the works; the cloth is falling off the table, warm and cool colors are used, blue is in the background, which is cold and distinct from the eye, and the work is flat. This strongly contrasts with Van Goghs work, the Night Cafe. This work was created when he was a post-impressionist. Strong diagonals are used, and they convey emotion. Unlike a blue, cold background, Van Gogh chooses red, which projects the wall forward. It also flattens the space overall as the depth is not accurately converted. This is due to Van Gogh’s belief that “a cafe is a place one can ruin oneself.” We also talked about his famous Starry Night, where we see Cyprus trees, which were commonly planted in cemeteries. It is evident Van Gogh is thinking about death, and this coincides with his mental health problems at the time. There is a sense of freedom and liberation when reaching to the stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today, we began class by discussing Post-Impressionism. We talked about two different aspects of it; the first is form, as seen with Cezanne and Seurat. The second is personal expression, as seen with Van Gogh and Gauguin. We began by comparing Paul Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire and Mont Sainte-Victoire and the viaduct of the Arc River […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19058,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19058"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2613,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612\/revisions\/2613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}