Making Empanadas
1930s Post-Impressionist Interior Paintings
Paper, Oil
People Also Browsed
2010s Figurative Paintings
Mixed Media
Late 20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings
Oil, Masonite
Artist Comments
In a subway station, commuters engage in various pastimes as they wait for the train to arrive. One reads a newspaper, another talks on a cell phone, while th...
21st Century and Contemporary Outsider Art Figurative Paintings
Oil
1890s Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil
1980s Post-Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Mid-20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings
Oil
1910s Impressionist Portrait Paintings
Oil, Canvas
Artist Comments
Artist Sharon Sieben paints a portrait of a nude woman in a calm morning scene. "It captures that first moment when she pushes the blanket away and contemplates...
21st Century and Contemporary Outsider Art Nude Paintings
Acrylic
1950s Abstract Impressionist Nude Paintings
Oil, Panel
1950s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Linen, Oil
1930s Modern Figurative Paintings
Oil, Canvas
Mid-20th Century American Paintings
Canvas, Paint, Giltwood, Fabric
Mid-20th Century Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Oil
1950s Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Alice Beamish'Coastline', Expressionist California Landscape, San Francisco Woman Artist, Circa 1960
1910s Post-Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Oil, Canvas
19th Century Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Watercolor
A Close Look at post-impressionist Art
In the revolutionary wake of Impressionism, artists like Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin advanced the style further while firmly rejecting its limitations. Although the artists now associated with Postimpressionist art did not work as part of a group, they collectively employed an approach to expressing moments in time that was even more abstract than that of the Impressionists, and they shared an interest in moving away from naturalistic depictions to more subjective uses of vivid colors and light in their paintings.
The eighth and final Impressionist exhibition was held in Paris in 1886, and Postimpressionism — also spelled Post-Impressionism — is usually dated between then and 1905. The term “Postimpressionism” was coined by British curator and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 at the “Manet and the Postimpressionists” exhibition in London that connected their practices to the pioneering modernist art of Édouard Manet. Many Postimpressionist artists — most of whom lived in France — utilized thickly applied, vibrant pigments that emphasized the brushstrokes on the canvas.
The Postimpressionist movement’s iconic works of art include van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889) and Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884). Seurat’s approach reflected the experimental spirit of Postimpressionism, as he used Pointillist dots of color that were mixed by the eye of the viewer rather than the hand of the artist. Van Gogh, meanwhile, often based his paintings on observation, yet instilled them with an emotional and personal perspective in which colors and forms did not mirror reality. Alongside Mary Cassatt, Cézanne, Henri Matisse and Gauguin, the Dutch painter was a pupil of Camille Pissarro, the groundbreaking Impressionist artist who boldly organized the first independent painting exhibitions in late-19th-century Paris.
The boundary-expanding work of the Postimpressionist painters, which focused on real-life subject matter and featured a prioritization of geometric forms, would inspire the Nabis, German Expressionism, Cubism and other modern art movements to continue to explore abstraction and challenge expectations for art.
Find a collection of original Postimpressionist paintings, mixed media, prints and other art on 1stDibs.
Finding the Right figurative-paintings for You
Figurative art, as opposed to abstract art, retains features from the observable world in its representational depictions of subject matter. Most commonly, figurative paintings reference and explore the human body, but they can also include landscapes, architecture, plants and animals — all portrayed with realism.
While the oldest figurative art dates back tens of thousands of years to cave wall paintings, figurative works made from observation became especially prominent in the early Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance masters created naturalistic representations of their subjects.
Pablo Picasso is lauded for laying the foundation for modern figurative art in the 1920s. Although abstracted, this work held a strong connection to representing people and other subjects. Other famous figurative artists include Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Figurative art in the 20th century would span such diverse genres as Expressionism, Pop art and Surrealism.
Today, a number of figural artists — such as Sedrick Huckaby, Daisy Patton and Eileen Cooper — are making art that uses the human body as its subject.
Because figurative art represents subjects from the real world, natural colors are common in these paintings. A piece of figurative art can be an exciting starting point for setting a tone and creating a color palette in a room.
Browse an extensive collection of figurative paintings on 1stDibs.