Synthetism

History

Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Louis Anquetin, and others pioneered the style during the late 1880s and early 1890s.

Synthetist artists aimed to synthesize three features:

• The outward appearance of natural forms.
• The artist's feelings about their subject.
• The purity of the aesthetic considerations of line, colour and form.

In 1890, Maurice Denis summarized the goals for synthetism as, :It is well to remember that a picture before being a battle horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order.

The term was first used in 1877 to distinguish between scientific and naturalistic Impressionism, and in 1889 when Gauguin and Emile Schuffenecker organized an Exposition de peintures du groupe impressioniste et synthétiste in the Café Volpini at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. The confusing title has been mistakenly associated with Impressionism. Synthetism emphasized two-dimensional flat patterns, thus differing from Impressionist art and theory.

Synthetist paintings

• Paul Sérusier - Talisman (Bois d'amour) (1888)
• Paul Gauguin - Vision After The Sermon (1888), La Belle Angele (1889), The Loss of Innocence (1890)
• Émile Bernard - Buckwheat Harvest (1888)
• Charles Laval - Going to Market (1888)
• Cuno Amiet - Breton Spinner (1893)

Gallery

Image:Paul Gauguin 085.jpg|Paul Gauguin, Les Alyscamps, (1888), Musée d'Orsay, Paris File:La vision après le sermon (Paul Gauguin).jpg|Paul Gauguin, Vision after the Sermon, 1888. File:Paul Sérusier 001.jpg|Paul Sérusier, The Talisman (with the forest landscape of love in Pont-Aven) 1888 File:Laval Allant au marché.jpg|Charles Laval, Going to Market, Brittany, 1888, Indianapolis Museum of Art File:Paul Gauguin 028.jpg|Paul Gauguin, The Green Christ, 1889 File:Émile Bernard 1888-08 - Breton Women in the Meadow (Le Pardon de Pont-Aven).jpg|Émile Bernard, Breton Women in the Meadow, August 1888. Bernard exchanged this one with Gauguin who brought it to Arles in autumn 1888 when he joined Van Gogh, who was fond of this style. Van Gogh painted a copy in watercolor to inform his brother Theo about it. File:Breton Women.jpg|Vincent van Gogh, Breton Women and Children, November 1888 (watercolor after Bernard). File:Porträt Paul Ranson.jpg|Portrait of Paul Ranson by Paul Sérusier, 1890, Musée d'Orsay, Paris Image:Louis Anquetin.jpg|Louis Anquetin, Reading Woman, 1890

References

References

1. Brettell, Richard R.. (1999). "Modern Art, 1851-1929: Capitalism and Representation". Oxford University Press.
2. [http://www.imamuseum.org/art/collections/artwork/going-market-brittany-laval-charles Charles Laval] Retrieved April 6, 2011