Editing Synthetism

{{Short description|Art style}}
[[File:Serusier - the talisman.JPG|thumb|''The Talisman'', by [[Paul Sérusier]], one of the principal works of the Synthetist school]]'''Synthetism''' is a term used by [[Post-Impressionism|Post-Impressionist]] artists like [[Paul Gauguin]], [[Émile Bernard]] and [[Louis Anquetin]] to distinguish their work [[Style (visual arts)|stylistically]] from [[Impressionism]]. Earlier, ''Synthetism'' has been connected to the term [[Cloisonnism]], and later to [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Modern Art, 1851-1929: Capitalism and Representation|url=https://archive.org/details/modernart18511920000bret|url-access=registration|first=Richard R.|last= Brettell|publisher= Oxford University Press|year=1999|isbn=019284220X}}</ref> The term is derived from the French verb ''synthétiser'' (''to synthesize'' or ''to combine so as to form a new, complex product'').

==History==
Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Louis Anquetin, and others pioneered the style during the late 1880s and early 1890s.

Synthetist artists aimed to ''synthesize'' three features: 
*The outward appearance of natural forms.
*The artist's feelings about their subject.
*The purity of the aesthetic considerations of line, colour and form.

In 1890, [[Maurice Denis]] summarized the goals for synthetism as,
:''It is well to remember that a picture before being a battle horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order.''

The term was first used in 1877 to distinguish between scientific and naturalistic [[Impressionism]], and in 1889 when Gauguin and [[Emile Schuffenecker]] organized an ''[[The Volpini Exhibition, 1889|Exposition de peintures du groupe impressioniste et synthétiste]]'' in the Café Volpini at the [[Exposition Universelle (1889)|Exposition Universelle]] in Paris. The confusing title has been mistakenly associated with [[Impressionism]]. Synthetism emphasized two-dimensional flat patterns, thus differing from Impressionist art and theory.

==Synthetist paintings==
[[File:Affiche Volpini.jpg|thumb|Poster of the 1889 Exhibition of Paintings by the [[Impressionist]] and Synthetist Group, at Café des Arts, known as [[The Volpini Exhibition, 1889]].]]
*[[Paul Sérusier]] - ''Talisman (Bois d'amour)'' (1888)
*[[Paul Gauguin]] - ''Vision After The Sermon'' (1888), ''La Belle Angele'' (1889), ''The Loss of Innocence'' (1890)
*[[Émile Bernard]] - ''Buckwheat Harvest'' (1888)
*[[Charles Laval]] - ''Going to Market'' (1888)
*[[Cuno Amiet]] - ''Breton Spinner'' (1893)

==Gallery==
<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px" perrow="3">
Image:Paul Gauguin 085.jpg|[[Paul Gauguin]], ''Les Alyscamps,'' (1888), [[Musée d'Orsay]], [[Paris]]
File:La vision après le sermon (Paul Gauguin).jpg|[[Paul Gauguin]], ''[[Vision after the Sermon]],''&nbsp;1888.
File:Paul Sérusier 001.jpg|[[Paul Sérusier]], ''The Talisman (with the forest landscape of love in Pont-Aven)'' 1888
File:Laval Allant au marché.jpg|[[Charles Laval]], ''Going to Market, Brittany'', 1888, [[Indianapolis Museum of Art]]<ref>[http://www.imamuseum.org/art/collections/artwork/going-market-brittany-laval-charles Charles Laval] Retrieved April 6, 2011</ref>
File:Paul Gauguin 028.jpg|[[Paul Gauguin]], ''[[The Green Christ]]'', 1889
File:Émile Bernard 1888-08 - Breton Women in the Meadow (Le Pardon de Pont-Aven).jpg|[[Émile Bernard (painter)|Émile Bernard]], ''Breton Women in the Meadow'',&nbsp; August 1888. Bernard exchanged this one with Gauguin who brought it to [[Arles]] in autumn 1888 when he joined Van Gogh, who was fond of this style. Van Gogh painted a copy in watercolor to inform his brother Theo about it.
File:Breton Women.jpg|[[Vincent van Gogh]], ''Breton Women and Children'', November&nbsp;1888 (watercolor after Bernard).
File:Porträt Paul Ranson.jpg|''Portrait of [[Paul Ranson]]'' by [[Paul Sérusier]], 1890, [[Musée d'Orsay]], [[Paris]]
Image:Louis Anquetin.jpg|[[Louis Anquetin]], ''Reading Woman,'' 1890
</gallery>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Post-Impressionism}}
{{Westernart}}

[[Category:Post-Impressionism]]
[[Category:Symbolism (arts)]]