Post-Impressionism immediately followed Impressionism and was taken up by many artists that were previously creating works in an Impressionistic style. The major proponents of the style were Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, and George Seurat. These artists were interested in capturing emotion through color and form and frequently depicted common scenes from everyday life. Unlike the Impressionists, the Post-Impressionists were not interested in atmosphere or lighting effects but instead used bold expressive color that does not represent reality. Their images were also more abstracted than works that preceded them. Seurat is most well known for his divisionist technique of painting which required creating forms through only the use of small dots of color. Cezanne, similarly, was inspired by form and painted his subjects through breaking down the objects into basic, geometric shapes. Gauguin was inspired by exotic Tahiti as he traveled to the island and idealized the natives in their natural habitat. Van Gogh's paintings are some of the most well known because of his outrageous personality and tragic demise after only selling one painting in his lifetime.
Fauvism was one of the first avant-garde styles of the early 20th century. Leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and Andre Derain. The term "fauve" means wild beast and was coined to describe the wild use of colors of the artists involved. The style is defined by the use of vivid, bright colors that are contrary to naturalistic depictions of the world. These colors were often used to elicit emotions from the viewer and were intended to represent the experience of the artist. Matisse wanted his paintings to have the same effect as an easy chair into which one could sink and relax. Fauvist artists rejected the traditional depiction of three-dimensional space and instead began to explore the flatness of the canvas creating spaces without the use of perspective. Henri Matisse is most famous for his "The Dance" which epitomizes his style of representing harmony and peace.
Cubism also began in the early 20th century and the forerunners of the movement were Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques. Picasso is one of the most famous artists of all time because of his innovation in the medium of painting and the rebellious spirit of his work. Cubism attempted to paint the world in a new way: by breaking down subjects into geometric forms, showing subjects from multiple perspectives within the same plane, and failing to distinguish between the foreground and background, thus emphasizing the two-dimensional quality of the canvas. There are two types of cubism, synthetic and analytic. Synthetic cubism is generally understood as a form of collage, bringing together different materials to create a composition. Analytic cubism borders on abstraction in which the forms are often fragmented to the point where the subject becomes unrecognizable. Picasso's "Demoiselles d'Avignon" created in 1907 was the first striking image created in the cubist style which was controversial because it depicts women believed to be prostitutes.