Late 18th & 19th Centuries

              1877, a group of painters began to oppose academic doctrines in romantic ideals and turned to the portrayal of contemporary life. They for the first time took their portraits outside and went ahead to illustrate what the eyes see rather then what the mind knows. The subjects that these artists would depict included landscapes and ordinary scenes. This period is called Impressionism, The impressionist saw the beauty of the world as a gift but had an objective and less emotional manner to that. One of the popular themes among the impressionists was contemporary middle class people enjoying leisure activities. One of the famous painters of Impressionism, Claude Monet a french painter is considered to be a founder of impressionist painting. He was responsible for a series of 25 paintings titled "Haystacks" and is known for it's dramatic use in repetition to show differences in perception of light across various themes of days, seasons as well as types of weathers.                      
      The picture to the left depicts a impressionist painting titled "sunrise" by the famous painter Claude Monet which is a good example of an impressionist painting if you examine the painting there isn't much detail yet there are bold colors such as the green blue and the orange from the sun reflecting on the sky.        





                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

  Post impressionism on the other hand believed in a free interpretation of nature, not to see things but to see through them to a significance in reality deeper than what superficial appearance gave. The painting on the left known as "the starry night" by Vincent Van Gogh who by the way was one of the artists that led the post impressionist movement depicts what post impressionism is all about they used bold colors, real life subject matter but used more geometric shapes such as the circles, buildings illustrated in the painting to the left.