Postimpressionism
Postimpressionists painted with intense and unnatural colors applied in large, flat areas. They chose colors primarily for their emotive rather than their representational qualities. They exaggerated form and shape, and emphasized the subjective rather than objective qualities of the visible world.

Some of the leading artists were Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh.

By elevating their subjective impression over objective reality, the Postimpressionists changed the 20th century attitude toward art  and laid the foundation for numerous artistic movements.

The best representative of Postimpressionism is probably Paul Cézanne (1839-1906).

Cezanne was trained under Pissarro and exhibited with the Impressionists in 1874 and 1877. He was largely ignored most of his life, exhibiting only occasionally until 1895. But in 1895, a Paris art dealer exhibited Cézanne's works and promoted them successfully over the next few years. By the time of his death, he was a legendary figure, and many younger artists came to his home to be trained.

Cézanne’s art reflected the fragmentation of modern thought at the time when all the basic assumptions of Western thought were being challenged.

“As philosophy had moved from unity to a fragmentation, this fragmentation was carried into the field of painting. The fragmentation shown in post-Impressionist paintings was parallel to the loss of hope for a unity of knowledge in philosophy. It was not just a new technique in painting. It expressed a world-view.” (Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?, p. 197)