Discuss the work of two still life painters from different periods, referring to specific examples of their work.

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Art And Design Expressive Essay1.

Discuss the work of two still life painters from different periods, referring to specific examples of their work.

Many painters over the years have created stunning works of art which come under the wide term of ‘still life’. Subject mater for this type of Art varies from flowers to cats and teapots. Different artists approach this type of art using very different techniques, media and varied use of colour. There are specific movements related to still life. These are, Impressionism, Neo Impressionism and post Impressionism. The colourists are another movement also related to still life.

Post Impressionism is the term applied to various trends in painting, particularly in France. Post impressionism developed from Impressionism or as a reaction against it approximately in the period from 1880-1905. Impressionism was a movement which originated in the 1860’s in France. The impressionists desire to look at the world with a new freshness and immediacy was encouraged by photography and scientific research into colour and light. Impressionists tried to capture the effects of light on varied surfaces. They transformed conventional styles by using sketchy brushwork and bright colours. Artists who are considered to be the key artists involved in the Post impressionism movement are Cezanne, Gaugin and Van Gogh.

The ways in which Post impressionism artists reflected some of the features of impressionism varied greatly. For eg. Seurat concentrated on a more scientific analysis of colour, Gaugin explored a symbolic use of colour and Van Gogh was very expressive in his work. Cezanne once said that he wished ‘ to make of impressionism something solid and enduring’ He was also interested in pictorial structure.

The artist Paul Cezanne was associated with the movement of post impressionism. Paul Cezanne was born in 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, he died in 1906. Cezanne originally studied law and worked in the family bank. He then moved to Paris to become an artist, after his friend Emile Zola introduced him to Manet and Courbet and persuaded him to take up the study of art in Paris. Cezanne’s father was very well off as he was a prosperous banker, so Cezanne was financially secure even though his new line of work did not allow him to make a great deal of money in the beginning. Cezanne had a reputation of being a bit eccentric and it took him a long time to fully maste4r his medium. However he emerged as one of the greatest artists of his time.

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Through contact with the Impressionists, Cezanne began to paint nature and gradually developed a completely new style, which established him as the ‘father of modern art’.  From about 1870 Cezanne started painting directly from nature. He exhibited his work along with the other Impressionists in 1873 and also in 1877, but was not entirely like the other impressionists as he did not necessarily use their type of techniques and his aims were not similar. Cezanne was not so interested in realistic representation and the effects of light and was more interested in the structural analysis of nature, looking forward ...

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