Collection: Synthetism

Synthetism is a Post-Impressionist style developed by Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, and Louis Anquetin in Brittany in 1888, principally at Pont-Aven. The term derives from the French synthétiser, to combine into a new product. The method merged the outward appearance of natural forms, the artist's emotional response to the subject, and pure aesthetic considerations of line and colour into a flat two-dimensional surface, in deliberate divergence from Impressionism's optical record.

Cloisonnism, the related term Anquetin used for the same approach by reference to medieval enamel technique, names the strong outline contour that separated areas of flat colour. Canonical works include Gauguin's Vision after the Sermon of 1888, Bernard's Buckwheat Harvest of the same year, and Paul Sérusier's The Talisman of 1888.

The 1889 Volpini Exhibition formalised the movement publicly. The Nabis circle in Paris, including Maurice Denis, Édouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Félix Vallotton, and Paul Ranson, absorbed and transmitted the lesson back to the capital, where it became one of the foundations of Symbolist painting in the 1890s.