Choosing a studio

Van Gogh vs Cézanne vs Monet — which studio should you open?

All three studios are free, all three speak seven export formats, and all three paint with palettes distilled from real canvases. The difference is how they put paint on: movement, construction or light. Here is the short guide.

The three engines side by side

	Van Gogh's Card	Cézanne's Card	Monet's Card
The engine	A seeded swirl engine: curved impasto strands with comma dabs and complementary pairs.	A patch engine: short parallel strokes laid in runs build planes and volume.	A broken-colour engine: soft touches and washes let light replace outlines.
The stroke	Swirl, impasto and dash — dense and rhythmic.	Short parallel patches — calm and constructive.	Broken touches and washes — airy and dissolving.
The palettes	27, from The Starry Night to Almond Blossom.	27, from Mont Sainte-Victoire to the Jas de Bouffan.	27, from Water Lilies to Rouen Cathedral.
Best for	Drama, moving gift cards, anything that should feel alive.	Composed, architectural cards; still lifes; quiet posters.	Gentle cards, garden themes, restful wallpapers.

1Impressionism and post-impressionism, in one minute

Monet came first: the 1874 exhibition that got the group called impressionists was built around canvases like Impression, Sunrise — pictures finished fast, in the open air, chasing light. Van Gogh and Cézanne came a decade later and pushed the same freedom in opposite directions: Van Gogh charged it with emotion and complementary colour; Cézanne disciplined it into structure. The three studios are a straight line through that story.

2How the three engines differ

Paint the same card idea in all three and the difference is immediate. Van Gogh's engine covers the surface in moving strands — the card looks worked wet-on-wet and in a hurry. Cézanne's engine stops moving and starts stacking: patches angled along the form, colour stepping in quiet intervals. Monet's engine lets the ground breathe through — soft touches, washes, and an overall light that never quite settles. None of them is a filter over an image; all of them are built from strokes.

3Steering any studio

Each studio exposes the same controls: palette (27 per painter, or extracted from your own photo), mood presets, stroke density, direction, texture and glow, plus locks so a setting you love survives the next paint. Text, hand-painted strokes, white borders and the corner radius complete the set.

Still unsure? Start with movement.

Van Gogh's Card is the loudest introduction and the fastest to impress; three strokes later you will know whether you want Cézanne's quiet or Monet's haze. Every studio keeps a door open to the other two, so trying all three costs a click each.

Open Van Gogh's Card

Comparison questions

Is impressionism the same as post-impressionism?

No. Impressionism (Monet and company, from the 1870s) chased light and momentary sensation; post-impressionism (Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, from the later 1880s) kept the free brush but bent it toward structure, emotion or symbol. The three studios deliberately sit on both sides of that line.

Are the three tools actually different engines?

Yes — different stroke models, different palettes, different defaults. Van Gogh swirls strands, Cézanne lays patches, Monet scatters broken touches; the cards on the gallery page were painted by exactly these engines.

Can I mix the styles?

Each card lives in one studio, but nothing stops you from painting the same idea in two of them: a mountain in Cézanne's patches, then re-seeded in Monet's light, makes a fine pair. Photo palette extraction works in every studio.

Which studio is best for a gift card?

Van Gogh for drama, Monet for calm — and the animated GIF export makes any of the three feel like a gift that moves.

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