POST-IMPRESSIONISM IN THE ARKAS COLLECTION

13 February 2019 – 28 July 2019

The second half of the 19th century witnessed the transformation of Paris into one of the first modernized cities of Europe. The attractive social and intellectual environment of the city turned it into an inspirational center of encounter for audacious artists, who aimed to cross the strict boundaries set by traditional painting. The Impressionists generation who gave acceleration to the efforts of enriching the expression forms of painting, carried French painting into a new movement, which became the starting point of Post-Impressionists.

In the period between 1880s and the first quarter of the 19th century, young artists, who profited from the current ideas in science, philosophy and literature in improving their artistic perceptions, desired to create a subjective and unique style of their own and developed numerous ways of depicting their feelings and thoughts with different interpretations of form and color in painting. Their common intention was to move away the art of painting from the traditional insistence on objective description of the outside world and emphasize the ideas and emotions of the artist in the process of creation. The goal was to depict the internal truth, in other words, the personal perspective of the artist on canvas.

The theories of especially Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Seurat on the application of the main elements of painting such as perspective, color, texture and form became a major source of reference for this new generation of artists. Painters with different methodological inclinations established various artistic groups like Pont-Aven School and the Nabis and numerous art movements such as Divisionism, Cloisonnism, Intimism, Fauvism and Cubism. Their theoretical and practical approach became influential in the formation of the modern art in 20th century.

Post-Impressionist paintings, acquired by Arkas Collection through years-long meticulous research, great efforts and lengthy investments, represents not only French artists, also various European artists who adopted the modernist approach of Parisian circles and fused it with their own cultural elements. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Louis Anquetin, Maxime Maufra, Theo van Rysselberghe, Paul Serusier, Suzanne Valadon, Edouard Vuillard, Leo Putz, Louis Valtat, Maurice de Vlaminck, Kees Van Dongen, André Derain, George Braque and André Lhote are among those artists the visitors can experience.