Art History Lecture Series—’ Giants of Art: The Post-Impressionists’ By Linda Blair

Realism was dead. 

Born in Florentine workshops in the early 1400s, realism enjoyed a long run, dominating European art for four centuries. By the mid-1860s it had degenerated into a weary superficiality. This inspired a group of young, creative, yet disgruntled artists to create a new artistic language and to propound radical theories and techniques. They did so, knowing they would be ridiculed, and worse, ignored. 

Impressionism, as it was called, slowly won a grudging acceptance, but by the 1880s a new generation of artists emerged. Like runners in a relay race, the Impressionists handed off the baton of artistic innovation to this next generation—Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gogh, and Picasso—today viewed as giants of European art history. If it can be said that the Impressionists—Manet, Monet, Renoir—fired the first salvos against realistic art, the Post-Impressionists reconfigured the battleground.    

Each Post-Impressionist artist pursued his own unique artistic vision but all were united in adopting the Impressionists’ conviction that art should not be filtered through ideology, intellect, or “schools of art.” Thus, liberated from constraint, art, they contended, should be independent, the exclusive product of the artist’s imagination and skill.     

Out of a field so rich in artistic genius, it is difficult to narrow the lens to just three artists, but the focus of this four-week series will be on Cezanne, Matisse, and, secondarily, Van Gogh.

WHEN:

Mondays, April 24; May 1, 8 & 15 at 1008 Wall Street, La Jolla.

TICKETS:

Series: Member: $56; Nonmember: $76 | Individual lectures: Member: $16; Nonmember: $21

HOW TO PURCHASE TICKETS:

Online: ljathenaeum.org/art-history-lectures

Phone: (858) 454-5872

About the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library

The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library is a cultural organization serving San Diego communities across two locations, in La Jolla and Logan Heights. Founded in 1899, the Athenaeum is a rare cultural institution that offers a depth and accessibility of resources and programs found nowhere else in the region.

The Athenaeum also presents an eclectic, year-round schedule of art exhibitions, classical, jazz, acoustic, and new music concerts, lectures, studio art classes, tours, and special events. In 2016 the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library expanded its offerings to Logan Heights with the Athenaeum Art Center (AAC), which serves as a local artists’ hub. It houses a print studio, a classroom, and the gallery of an event for exhibitions, concerts, and talks.

The La Jolla location is free and open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The AAC, located at 1955 Julian Avenue in the Bread & Salt complex, is free and open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, every second Saturday (during the Barrio Art Crawl), and for scheduled ticketed programs and classes. Members can check out library materials for a modest annual fee and receive regular discounts on event tickets and art classes. For more information on the benefits of becoming a member, please call (858) 454-5872 or visit www.ljathenaeum.org.