Post Impressionism, a movement in France, is a term that is less easy to define than Impressionism. It is an extension of Impressionism, and a rejection of the inherent limitations of that style. While the impressionists differed in personal styles and favorite subjects, one thing that was consistent between the artists was their interest in the transitory effects of light and spontaneous compositions. The post-impressionists were also concerned with light but it is not as much of a central concern, and their personal styles differed greatly.

The English art critic Roger Fry coined the term ""Post Impressionism" for the work of late 19th-century painters such as Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. These began as Impressionists, each of them abandoning the style, to form his own highly personal art.

In the broadest sense, Post Impressionism is the theory or practice of any of several groups of painters during the early 1900's, whose work and theories have a common tendency to reaction against the scientific and naturalistic character of impressionism and neo-impressionism. In the strict sense, the term post-impressionism is used to denote the effort at self-expression, rather than representation.

In practice the theories and methods of the post-impressionists change with great rapidity and shade into one another. 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.