There were many artists during the 1880’s who were trying to claim freedom from nature, to allow themselves the pleasures of more self expression but who were held back by the simple fact that man himself was tied down with his links to nature. A break from naturalism was not to materialise until some twenty years later with the birth pangs of abstract art. The steps these artists of the 1880’s were looking for was a break from observed representation. Paris was a hotbed of ideas within the young educated (or being educated) middle class. Symbolism and its search for new the boundaries of creativity within literature and poetry began to point the way for these young men, their almost post modernist approach to their art looked to steal ideas from every form of intellectual discipline. These painters were a clique and were accused by their contemporaries of being too intellectual to be serious painters.

Now (maybe?) to be considered as a serious painter you have to be (too) intellectual. Paintings cannot be simply viewed for their ‘pleasurable’ effect they have to be explained – this is a shame.