PAUL CEZANNE

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PAUL CEZANNE Mt St Victoire 1895 Oil on canvas
What were the concerns of Cezanne in his art? How
did he reflect those concerns in this painting?
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The Artist-Scientist
GEORGES SEURAT
1859 - 1891
NEO-IMPRESSIONISM
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1859 -- 1891
They see poetry in what I have done. No. I
apply my method, and that is all there is to it.
NEO-IMPRESSIONISM
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Influences
Piero della Francesca The Flagellation c. 1469

• Visited Louvre studied works of
• - Classical Greek sculpture
• - Italian northern Renaissance
• (e.g. Piero della Francesca)

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Influences
Piero della Francesca
Influences
- Early artist of the Italian Renaissance. -
Interested in geometry mathematics. - Painted
mainly religious works with simple serenity
clarity.
The Baptism 1442
The Flagellation 1469
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Influences
Also influenced by - Ingres -
Rembrandt - Delacroix
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Influences
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
- Works characterized by purity of line,
enamel-like colouring, calligraphic line
expressive contour.
The Valpincon Bather 1808
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Influences
Rembrandt
- Use of luxuriant brushwork rich colour. -
Master of light shadow studied lines, light,
shade colour.
Anatomy Lecture of Dr Nicholaes Tulp 1632
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Influences
Eugene Delacroix
- Romantic painter. - Remarkable use of
colour. Made use of many unblended colours
forming what at a distance looks like a unified
whole.
Dante Virgil Crossing the Styx 1822
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• Interested in theoretical writings on vision
  colour by Michel-Eugene Chevreul
• Colours are purer when mixed in the human eye.

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AIM OF SEURAT Create an art of harmony - To
synthesize the colour experiments of the
Impressionists with the classical structure of
Renaissance. (i.e., to make the moment
enduring) - To combine concepts of pictorial
space, traditional perspective the newest
scientific discoveries in the perception of
colour light.
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1881 Developed a highly original drawing
technique in black conte crayon - Extracted
simplified very solid figures by
subtle exact control of tones.
The Echo 1883
Woman Fishing 1884 - 5
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1883 Developed the technique of painting --
Pointillism Pointillism A system of applying
paint in isolated dots of pure colour.
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Can you read the numbers?
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Example of Seurats Pointillist technique
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Examples of Seurats Pointillist technique
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Technique of Pointillism Break down colour
present in nature to constituent hues Transfer
them to canvas in a pure/primary state --
dots/small strokes Human eye to re-constitute
hues -- optical mixture In doing so, preserve
colours of nature in all actuality vividness.
Unmixed dots of paint resulted in luminous,
brilliantly light-filled paintings.
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NEO-IMPRESSIONISM
- Derived from Seurats La Grande
Jatte - Term was coined by Felix Feneon
in 1886. Peinture au point (Painting by
dots) Pointillism / Divisionism is also known
as Neo-Impressionism
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Seurats use of the Golden Section
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Golden Section
- Known as the Divine proportion.
B
A
M
1-x
x
- Ratio of the shorter line (AM) to the longer
line (MB) is equal to the ratio of the longer
line (MB) to the entire line (AB). 1-x/x
x/1 1-x x square X 0.6180339
- A rectangle with sides in this ratio exhibits a
special beauty.
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The Golden Section and the Golden Rectangle
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The Golden Section (Ratio) in Seurats Paintings
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Bathers at Asnieres 1883 - 4

• Note down the subject matter (recognizable
  stuff) in this work

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Superimposition of the golden rectangle on
Seuratss artwork
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The Golden Section and the Golden Rectangle
x
1-x
1-x/x x/1
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La Grande Jatte 1884 - 86
Can you point out the uses of the Golden Section?
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Circus Sideshow (La Parade) 1887 - 88
Can you point out the uses of the Golden Section?
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The Bridge at Courbevoie 1886 - 7
Can you point out the uses of the Golden Section?
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Le Chahut 1889 - 90
Can you point out the uses of the Golden Section?
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The Circus 1890
Can you point out the uses of the Golden Section?
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Woman powdering Herself 1890
Can you point out the uses of the Golden Section?
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Seurats work - Subject matter Modern urban
life - Technique Disciplined painstaking
application of dots - Composition
Well-balanced resolving his pictures into
immobile patterns. Seurat I want to make
modern people move about as if they were on the
Parthenon frieze, in their most essential
characteristics.
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La Grande Jatte 1884 - 86
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Auguste Renoir La Moulin de la Galette 1876
Georges Seurat La Grande Jatte 1884 - 86
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Seurat attached symbolic meaning to lines
colours
Cheerfulness
Sad
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Seurats Influence
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Vincent van Gogh Interior of a restaurant 1887
Henri Matisse Luxe calm et volupte 1904-5
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Pointillist technique was influential in the
Italian art movement of Futurism.
Giacomo Balla Street Light 1909
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The theory of colour light were later explored
by the Abstract Expressionists Colour-Field
painters of WW2.
Mark Rothko Orange Yellow
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• Seurat -- A Summary
• Systematic artist
• Deliberate methods precise harmonies
• Applied his theories of colour, line and
  composition to achieve harmony

NEO-IMPRESSIONISM
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1. Name TWO influences on Seurat.
2. What is the aim of Seurats art?
3. What is the painting technique developed by
   Seurat known as?
4. What is the mathematical theory used by Seurat
   known as?
5. Write down FIVE words that you will use to
   describe the composition found in Seurats work.

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Interpreting Seurat
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Bathers at Asnieres 1883 - 4
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Asnières is an industrial suburb west of Paris on
the River Seine. The present work shows a group
of young workmen taking their leisure by the
river.This was the first of Seurat's
large-scale compositions. He drew conté crayon
studies for individual figures using live models,
and made small oil sketches on site which he used
to help design the composition and record effects
of light and atmosphere. Some 14 oil sketches
and 10 drawings survive. The final composition,
painted in the studio, combines information from
both. While the painting was not executed using
Seurat's pointillist technique, which he had not
yet invented, the artist later reworked areas of
this picture using dots of contrasting colour to
create a vibrant, luminous effect. For example,
dots of orange and blue were added to the boy's
hat. The simplicity of the forms and the use of
regular shapes clearly defined by light recalls
paintings by the Renaissance artist Piero della
Francesca. In his use of figures seen in profile,
Seurat may also have been influenced by ancient
Egyptian art.
Bathers at Asnieres 1883 - 4
Also read up article from http//www.guardian.co.u
k/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2010/apr/14/georg
e-seurat-bathers-at-asnieres-art
http//www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/george
s-seurat-bathers-at-asnieres
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In Seurats paintings. we can find - Strong
interest in an exact articulate
composition. Emphasis on compositional
balance. - Use of simplified silhouetted
shapes.
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Influenced by the Impressionists experimentation
with color, Postimpressionist painter Georges
Seurat worked with innovative techniques. On an
enormous canvas, the artist depicted city
dwellers gathered at a park on La Grande Jatte
(literally, "the big platter"), an island in the
River Seine. All kinds of people stroll, lounge,
sail, and fish in the park. Using newly
discovered optical and color theories, Seurat
rendered his subject by placing tiny, precise
brush strokes of different colors close to one
another so that they blend at a distance. Art
critics subsequently named this technique
Divisionism, or Pointillism. The artist visited
La Grande Jatte many times, making drawings and
more than 30 oil sketches to prepare for the
final work. With his precise method and
technique, Seurat conceived of his painting as a
reform of Impressionism. The precise contours,
geometric shapes, and measured proportions and
distances in Seurats masterpiece (not to mention
its monumental size) contrast significantly with
the small, spontaneous canvases of
Impressionism. Over the past several decades,
many scholars have attempted to explain the
meaning of this great composition. For some, it
shows the growing middle class at leisure. Others
see it as a representation of social tensions
between modern city dwellers of different social
classes, all of whom gather in the same public
space but do not communicate or interact.
La Grande Jatte 1884 - 86
http//www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_Impressionist/pa
ges/IMP_7.shtml
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Creating La Grande JatteFor A Sunday on La
Grande Jatte1884 Seurat converted a well-known
Impressionist site into an open stage. Across his
canvas he positioned a variety of characters that
he had developed in his many drawn and painted
studies for the work. From these auditions,
Seurat eventually selected the performers for the
final production, combining the functions of both
playwright and director. StageSeurat used as
his setting a small section of the elongated
island in the Seine just beyond Pariss city
limits. The many dining and dancing
establishments, wine shops, and shipbuilders
yards located at different points on the island
did not make their way into his work nor did the
factories across the river, which had undermined
the islands social cachet. Seurat focused
instead on the green park at the far northwestern
tip, facing the town of Courbevoie.CastSeurat
s canvas incorporates 3 dogs, 8 boats, and 48
people who congregate on a Sunday to enjoy and
parade around in nature. The cast of modern
characters includes soldiers, boaters, the
fashionably and casually dressed, the old and the
young, families, couples, and single men and
women.
La Grande Jatte 1884 - 86
http//www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/seurat/seurat
_themes.html
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PlotlinesUnlike the setting, Seurats plot is
not readily identifiable. La Grande Jatte conveys
grand solemnity in counterpoint with a wry sense
of humor. Seurats stated ambition was to make
modern people in their essential traits move
about as they do on ancient Greek friezes and
place them on canvases organized by harmonies.
He introduced an element of irony by suggesting a
sense of timelessnessin the frozen quality of
the figureswhile also insisting on a very
up-to-the-moment awareness of fashion. The couple
in the foreground presents a striking and elegant
silhouette, but they can also be seen as somewhat
comically puffed-up fashion plates involved in
the ritual of self-display.Relationships
between figures are implied, but the characters
overt lack of interaction makes it difficult to
identify or even imagine the plot. Some have
argued that the social order Seurat so elegantly
constructed is more tenuous than his rigid
composition at first suggests. While the figures
appear to fit seamlessly within the whole, their
exact social stations and motivations remain open
to speculation and debate. Sets and Sources
Past and PresentSeurat was determined to create
a new classicism that would remake Impressionism
by eliminating the accidental and the momentary,
while preserving the vitality of life in forms
that embodied enduring ideals. He drew on a
variety of sourcesancient and modern, serious
and comicto realize his ambition through a
subtle interweaving of seeming contraries.
Critics recognized the divergent visual sources
that give the figures both modern flatness and
anonymity and at the same time a pharaonic
(ancient Egyptian) sense of timelessness and
seriousness associated with large-scale history
painting.
La Grande Jatte 1884 - 86
http//www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/seurat/seurat
_themes.html
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• Seurat compensated the complexity of his
  technique by radical simplification of forms.
• Moved away from faithful rendering of natural
• appearances.
• Exploration of interesting expressive
  patterns.

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• Pick ONE of the following paintings by Seurat and
  do a detailed analysis on the composition,
  subject matter and technique found in the work.