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- 2. A STUDY OF HISCOLOURS THE ARTIST OF THE 19TH CENTURY GS 01
- 3. GS 02 Seurat learnt aboutthe colour theory from Michel-Eugene Chevreul, a French chemist and Ogden Rood, a New York physicist. In a study of Optical Mixture, Rood had con- cluded that painters should not mix their col- ours too much but should, whenever possible, juxtapose pure, unmixed pigments. Most importantly, Rood discovered what we know of today as complementary colours. It can increase the effect of colour in a painting to the highest degree of luminosity: an effect Seurat sought to achieve across all his works.
- 4. GS 03 “I want tomake modern people, in their essential traits, move about as they do on those Greek friezes, and place them on canvases organised by harmonies of colour, by directions of the tones in harmony with the lines, and by the directions of the line.” — Seurat explaining his goal to the critic, Gustave Kahn in 1888 —
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- 7. GS 05 La Grande Jattewas a very popular island destination on Sundays. All of Paris would flock here for a stroll or enjoy a canoe trip. But, it was also a “Modern Cythera” — a love island for rendezvous between city men & loose women. It was a painting in which Seurat had gathered the Parisian middle classes. What looked like a simple composition, was actually the amalgamation of different scientific research studies about colours.
- 8. Although there arewhite highlights distributed across the entire painting, the viewer is particularly drawn to the little girl dressed in white in the middle. As a colour, white stands out at the centre of all the colours: the prismatic colours are born of white light and can revert to white light. Newton discovered it, Seurat applied it to his painting.
- 10. Seurat, a Neo-Impressionistpainter, lends his figures a 3-dimensionality new to the Impressionists. He achieves this by giving the figures aureoles & via the carefully calculated contrast of light & dark between figures and background.
- 12. What seems afleeting moment captured on a Sunday afternoon is in fact, isolated from time — with the exception of a girl skipping in the right half of the scene.
- 14. The patch oflawn in the shade reflects the colours of the grass, but also has Orange dots: influence of the sun Purple dots: the complementary colour of green The colours reunite on the retina: hence it is no longer a mixture of pigmentcoloursbutinstead,amixture of variously coloured rays of light.
- 16. GS 09 Seurat separates thecolour of an object into its local colour and the colour of light, which in this painting, is orange, as can be seen from the dots of orange-yellow distributed through- out the painting. Seurat avoids strong contrasts of colour. Only the tonal interplay of red/green and blue/or- ange is apparent, richly nuanced throughout the painting.
- 17. THUS, these colours andthe changes in an object’s colour, as precipitated by the light are broken down into individual dots, to be reunited in colour as an “Optical Mixture” in the eye.
- 19. GS 11 Seurat’s method wascalled, Pointillism. This elaborate painting technique was intend- ed to let more light into the picture and offer a scientifically-based response to the Impres- sionists’ spontaneous approach to painting. Pointillism is only genuinely effective when we alternate close-up and distant viewing to cre- ate a type of vibration in the colours.
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- 22. GS 13 Following his debutof La Grande Jatte at the Impressionist Exhibition in 1886, Seurat spent the summer painting along the Channel coast of the port city of Honfleur. He loved the pearly light that dissolved solid forms when he was looking at the sea, hence he reduced his palette, from red/orange and green/blue to the colour tan, aquamarine, blue and lavender.
- 23. The evening sunis filling the pic- ture with a warm, refracted light, with which the varied nuances of colour accord.
- 25. Dark blue banksof cloud with dots the colour of tan thrusts their way into the expansive yellow sky from the right.
- 27. The few solidobjects in the picture, such as the piles and rock in the foreground, combine effectively into a calmly structured rhythm.
- 29. GS 17 most importantly, an importantinnovation in Evening, Honfluer is the painted frame which surrounds the compo- sition. Seurat had begun to add painted frames executed directly onto the canvas. Yet another instance of his continual search to refine his technique, the painted borders con- sists of small strokes of colour that responds as complements to the hues in the composi- tion.
- 31. GS 18 Evening, Honfleur, isthe timeless poetry of the sea which the Symbolist writers so greatly ad- mired. Seurat’s seascapes are marked by serene tran- quility and an all-permeating light. He was interested in neither the hustle & bustle of the ports, nor in the colourful scenes on the beaches. Instead, he turned his attention to the diverse moods created by the constantly changing light over the sea. Paul Adam, a Symbolist poet, described it as, “An orchestra of symphonic dabs of colour”
- 32. GS 19 in a nutshell, Seuratunderstood how to classically com- pose a major work, yet uses new techniques whilst doing so. He was a Neo-Impressionist because despite painting everyday life, he painted them in a large scale format. He also used earth pig- ments: ochres and browns long frowned upon by the Impressionists and they lend the pic- ture a soft & muted harmony.
- 33. GS 20 The previously sketchy Impressionisteffect has been transmuted into a depiction of great calm, harmony and well-thought out order.
- 34. GS 21 Seurat is theartist of the 19th century because his paintings provided inspiration to the contemporaries of his time, such as:
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- 39. GS 22 Georges-Pierre Seurat Futurism +Cubism They all bear witness in the absolute value placed upon abstract cultural imperatives to their great predecessor, Georges Seurat. Henri Matisse ABSTRACTION Robert Delaunay Oskar Schlemmer Piet Mondrian De Stijl
- 40. GS 23 Seurat had aripple effect: he served as an inspiration not only to artists, but to writers as well. He was a precursor to Art Nouveau and Art Deco.
- 41. GS 24 Seurat’s technique stilllives in contemporary today:
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- 45. GS 25 “How unfair peopleare about Seurat! They refuse to recognise him as one of the geniuses of our century! He was interested in everything and achieved definitive results in the fields of black and white drawing, the harmony of lines, of composition, of contrast, and the harmony of colour... and even in that of the frame. What more can one ask of an artist?” — Paul Signac, in a tribute to Seurat which he wrote in his journal —
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- 47. GS 26 BIBLIOGRAPHY Salvesen, B.(2004) Seurat and the Making of “La Grande Jatte.” The Art Institute of Chicago Duchting, H. (2000) Seurat. Taschen Foa, M. (2005) Georges Seurat: The Art of Vision. Yale Uni- versity Press Smith, P. (1997) Seurat and the Avant-Garde. Yale University Press.