An analysis of post-impressionist painting techniques and symbolism

¶ … fresh and contemporary style. And it ended up coming exactly that way. The piece has a female figure as the centre piece. The intention was to create an impression of a woman, who, although was faced with many problems, dreamt of a better future. The stresses or problems are portrayed through red colors above the woman's figure and some indications to show heat rising in the background. Then below the figure there is a shade of blue to show that she is in a dream state. However, she is never totally peaceful or stressed; she is in a kind of a limbo, which is depicted by the shade of black in the middle segment of the figure. The dream state is emphasized by the use of bright colors around the figure and drawing the figure itself in dark and dull colors. I attempted to bring about some movement in the piece by using fierce colors at the top and contrasting them with darker colors in the middle. It is my belief that this piece shows modernism, owing to the fact that I used older styles and gave them a contemporary feel. When I was doing the piece, I was thinking about the current stresses and challenges facing many people around the world today (Galbreat, 2014).

Post Impressionism

Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel)

Artist

Paul Gauguin

Date the piece was created

Art movement and/or style

Post Impressionism

Media

Oil on canvas

Description

The piece depicts a biblical scene in which an angel wrestles with Jacob. The painting shows this fight in an indirect manner, via a vision that the ladies portrayed the picture after attending church. The piece was painted in Pont-Aven, Brittany, France. The utilization of shade, line, color and shape in the vision is unique in its bold utilization of paint. Gauguin found inspiration in Japanese woodblock prints from Hokusai and Hiroshige (Matthew, 1977), which he used to develop the concept of non-naturalistic landscapes. He utilizes large sectors of color (flat) on the piece. The ground is painted in red, which is different from the normal typical colors used in the representation of grass, field and earth. The figures depicted in the piece are made through Gauguin's experimentation with strong contour lines, exaggerated features and distorted shapes.

The piece is structured in quite an interesting way, through the drawing of a tree trunk in the middle. By structuring the image in this manner, Gauguin creates a separation between the women and their biblical vision of Jacob wrestling with an angel.

This compositional decision is actually established to frame the major subjects of the painting. The line on the head of the centrally positioned figure precedes the curve of the trunk. The leaves and branches point out directly towards the painting's upper right corner to develop a second frame around Jacob and the angel. This particular painting generally has a skewed point-of-view (Kumskova, 2013).

Symbolism

Jeunes Filles au Bord de la Mer (Young Girls on the Edge of the Sea)

Artist

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

Date the piece was created

Art movement and/or style

Symbolism

Media

Oil on canvas

Description

This particular subject puts forward three naked images: a young lady on her knees whose outstretched arms seem to have just released their hold from an older man's hand that is being held in another woman's arms, (an older woman) who seems to be compelling the man forward and away from that young man. The title actually points to a tale of ageing, whereby the man, the protagonist of this particular piece, is exiting his childhood and moving towards old age and eventually death (Pollitt, n.d.).