Wholesale Post-Impressionism: Beyond Appearances

Based on an exhibition organized by the Musée d’Orsay at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, this richly illustrated book focuses on the two bubbling decades between the mid-1880s and the mid-1900s, from the last collective exhibition of the Impressionists in 1886 to the Autumn Salon of 1905 marked by the "Fauves" scandal: Derain, Matisse, Vlaminck and their explosive colors. The term "Post-Impressionism" was coined in 1910 by the English art critic Roger Fry, who was trying to find an expression that could describe Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Gauguin’s painting as well as that of Seurat, Sérusier, Denis and Redon. This catalog shows the full span of pictorial reactions to Impressionism with masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay and insists on the richness and complexity of the Post-Impressionist constellation, seeking to highlight the intrinsic qualities of each painter’s work. Post-Impressionism: Beyond Appearances delves into the art of this fascinating and pivotal double decade, during which plastic expression gradually moved away from the representation of reality toward the expression of the psychic, emotional and spiritual worlds of the artists.