Who was Georges Seurat (1859–1891) And Why is He connected to Neo-Impressionism?
A painter of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and invented a new style in pointillism.
Georges Seurat is probably best known for his painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. But in fact, the French post-impressionist artist painted a number of other popular works in addition to this one. In particular, Seurat is considered a pioneer of Neo-Impressionism. Before we jump into Seurat’s life and contributions to the world of art, let us first take a look at what Neo-Impressionism is.
Neo-Impressionism became popular in the late 19th century after French artists Paul Signac, Henri Edmond Cross, Charles Angrand, Georges Seurat, and Armand Guillaumin started experimenting with this technique. In 1891 when Seurat died at age 31 from a disease he contracted while serving in the military in Algeria, his work had already been recognized by critics as an important advancement towards establishing a new school of art called Neo-impressionism.
Vincent van Gogh coined the term in 1886 during one of many letters where he described seeing an exhibition of paintings by Seurat and Paul Signac. Van Gogh was highly impressed with their work and described it as “impressionism improved by a whole generation.”
What is Neo-Impressionism?
So what exactly is Neo-Impressionism? The term can be somewhat perplexing because it seems to imply that it is an updated version of Impressionism. But in fact, the two styles are quite different. While Impressionism focuses on capturing the momentary effect of light and color, Neo-Impressionism is all about using Pointillism to create optical illusions.
Pointillism is a painting method where small dots of color are placed next to each other to create the appearance of a larger picture. This technique is closely related to the optical phenomenon known as color constancy, which doesn’t allow one’s eyes and brain to “correct” colors next to each other and creates a jarring effect for those who view it.
Georges Seurat began developing Neo-Impressionism by analyzing how different types of lines and shapes created optical illusions — an approach he believed helped create harmony in his works. One of the things I find so captivating about Seurat’s work is the fact that he was able to accomplish such beautiful effects using such simple techniques like dabs of paint or dots (which sometimes can be hard to even see). While it seems like an easy enough task, creating an optical illusion with just these techniques takes a great deal of skill and practice, as you can see from this comparison between Seurat’s work and a photograph:
As you can see, it isn’t easy to make every little dot appear to be a smooth gradient by just looking at them from afar! In fact, if you look closely enough, you will discover that there is always something wacky going on in every painting. He did that causes your eyes to play tricks on you. While surrealist paintings often try to break away from reality by creating anti-realistic images, Neo-Impressionist paintings take realism and turn it on its head by using optical illusions to create a perfect sense of reality.
The Influence of Neo-Impressionism
So why was Neo-Impressionism so popular? Well, for one, it was an easy enough style for anyone to try their hand at. And secondly, it created very visually pleasing effects that were quite different from anything else that was being done at the time. In fact, Neo-Impressionism became so popular that some artists who started out painting in this style eventually abandoned others in favor of this style.
Paul Signac is a good example of this. After developing Pointillism with Seurat, he eventually became one of the main proponents of Divisionism, a more colorful version of Neo-Impressionism that used bolder colors and dabs rather than dots. He eventually ended up believing that color should be used alone to create an optical illusion without any black outlines at all (shades of Pointillism, I suppose).
Despite all these departures, Neo-Impressionism continued to thrive throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s as artists began to explore new ways of using the style. Even today, there are some artists who still use aspects of Pointillism in their work, proving that this unique style is here to stay.
In conclusion:
Neo-Impressionism is a unique style of painting that uses optical illusions to create incredibly realistic images. Georges Seurat developed this style in the late 1800s and early 1900s thanks to its easy-to-learn techniques and visually pleasing effects. While some artists have abandoned this style in favor of others, Neo-Impressionism continues to thrive to this day.
