Impressionism was a form of art in the late nineteenth century that used luminosity, subtlety of tone and preoccupation with sensation. The impressionist subject matter preserved the romantic fascination with nature and the realist preoccupation with late century French society. An example of an impressionist work would be Claude Monet's Impression: Sunrise. Impression: Sunrise is a seascape that shows more of what one sees than the sea. The painting had no real strong lines because there were no lines in nature. Postimpressionism describes the western artists who followed the impressionist. They believed in art for arts sake aestheticism, they prized pictorial invention. An example would be Van Gogh's The Starry Night. This is a landscape view of the small French town of Saint-Remy. The paintings sky rolls like ocean waves. The moon appears to burn like the sun. He uses color to express his vision of nature.
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