Post-Impressionism is the general denomination of several stylistic movements which were prevalent in France during the period 1880-1910. The Post-Impressionist painters built on the Impressionist revolution of the depiction of light, as developed by Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir and Édouard Manet. As such they developed the innovative techniques of Divisionism, used by the so-called Neo-Impressionists such as Paul Signac and Georges Seurat, and of Synthetism used by Paul Gauguin and his followers of the so-called School of Pont-Aven, such as Paul Sérusier and Émile Bernard. Post-Impressionism also includes the Symbolist Nabis group, represented by Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton, as well as Fauvism, represented by Henri Matisse, André Derain, Albert Marquet, Raoul Dufy and Kees Van Dongen. A singular figure of Post-Impressionism is Vincent Van Gogh.
Modern Art denotes a cluster of artistic movements driven by the spirit of pushing the boundaries of experimentation. In its rejection of the centuries-old tradition of painting after Nature, it is Impressionism that Art History defined as the beginning of Modern Art. However, in a more casual sense, it is the advent of Cubism around 1910 that is generally viewed as the birth of Modern Art. The movement extended well into the 1950s and is characterised by the questioning of the very notion of representation. Modern Art comprises Cubism, Dada, Surrealism and Abstraction in its different forms of Lyrical Abstraction, Tachism, Abstract Expressionism and Hard Edge. Major figures of Modern Art include Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Jean Dubuffet.
The term Post-War is generally associated with the advent of New York as the new epicentre of the art world in the wake of the Second World War. The American painters Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko respectively invented the new styles of Gestural painting, in the form of Abstract Expressionism, and Colour Field Painting. During the Late 1950s Pop Art emerged in New York and London. In Europe Abstract Expressionism shaped a new generation of young painters who were experimenting during the 1950s and early 1960s such as Hans Hartung, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Victor Vasarely, Maria-Héléna Vieira da Silva as Pierre Soulages.
