post-impressionism

Post-impressionism \Post`-im*pres"sion*ism\, n. (Painting)
   In the broadest sense, the theory or practice of any of
   several groups of painters of the early 1900's, or of these
   groups taken collectively, whose work and theories have in
   common a tendency to reaction against the scientific and
   naturalistic character of impressionism and
   neo-impressionism. In a strict sense the term
   post-impressionism is used to denote the effort at
   self-expression, rather than representation, shown in the
   work of C['e]zanne, Matisse, etc.; but it is more broadly
   used to include cubism, the theory or practice of a movement
   in both painting and sculpture which lays stress upon volume
   as the important attribute of objects and attempts its
   expression by the use of geometrical figures or solids only;
   and futurism, a theory or practice which attempts to place
   the observer within the picture and to represent
   simultaneously a number of consecutive movements and
   impressions. In practice these theories and methods of the
   post-impressionists change with great rapidity and shade into
   one another, so that a picture may be both cubist and
   futurist in character. They tend to, and sometimes reach, a
   condition in which both representation and traditional
   decoration are entirely abolished and a work of art becomes a
   purely subjective expression in an arbitrary and personal
   language.
   [Webster 1913 Suppl.]