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Vincent Van Gogh

Both Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet are known today for their great artistic talents and skills as a painter. Both of which were influenced in their painting styles by impressionism. However, while Claude Monet was devoutly an impressionistic painter, Vincent Van Gogh simply encompassed both the techniques and colors of impressionism to form a new personal style which has come to be known as post-impressionism. Post impressionism is a movement that represents both an extension of impressionism and a rejection of the inherit limitations of impressionism.
Impressionist art is a style in which the artist captures the image of an object as someone would see it if they just caught a glimpse of it. They paint the pictures with a lot of color and most of their pictures are outdoor scenes. Their pictures are very bright and vibrant. The artists like to capture their images without detail but with bold colors. Some of the greatest impressionist artists were Edouard Manet, Camille Pissaro, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot and Pierre Auguste Renoir.
Claude Monet is generally considered to be the most outstanding figure among Impressionists. The term Impressionism actually derives from his picture Impression: Sunrise. When a title was needed in a hurry for the catalogue of the exhibition in 1874, Monet suggested Impression. Claude Monet was born in 1840 and began painting in 1858. He continued to paint until his death in 1926.The most famous of Monet’s paintings include Water Lilies, San Giorgio Maggiore at Giverny, Irises, The Japanese Footbridge, Water Lily Pool, Water Lilies at Giverny, Fishermans Cottage on the Cliffs at Var, and Impression: Sunrise.
However, immediately following Impressionism was a French art movement known as Post Impressionism. The most famous artists in the Post Impressionist movement were Paul Cezanne, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Henri de Tolouse-Lautrec. These painters showed a greater concern for expression, structure and form than the Impressionist artists did. They rejected the emphasis the Impressionists put on naturalism and the depiction of fleeting effects of light. The post-impressionists are also concerned with light, but it is not as much of a central concern, and their personal styles differ greatly.
One of the most famous of the Post Impressionist artists is Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh was born in 1853 to a Dutch pastor and ended up attempting several unsuccessful careers as both schoolmaster and missionary. In 1880 he became a full-time artist. Van Gogh's early work, during his Dutch period was heavy and rich but subdued in color. After his contact with other painters in Paris, with Japanese prints and the work of such original colorists as Delacroix and Monticelli, Van Gogh's style changed radically. Van Gogh began painting in the new artistic style that became known as Post Impressionism. Vincent then began capturing his exuberance and passion for the surrounding countryside. Among hundreds of paintings from this time are the famous Starry Night, Sunflowers, Starry Night over the Rhone, Café Terrace at Night, Cornfield and Cypress Tree, Olive Trees, Wheatfield with Crow, The Bedroom at Arles, The Night Café in the Place Lamartine in Arles, The Mulberry Tree, Church at Auvers, and Wheatfield under a Cloudy Sky.