A popular yet degrading myth surrounding the work and method of Seurat, suggested that this optical mixture restricted him to the three primary colours. Up until 1959 when William Innes Homer’s study of the artist’s palette revealed that it constituted no less than eleven spectral colours. A book published by the former in 1964 ventures to offer us his own scientific appraisal of the latter by stating that the purpose of Seurat’s optical mixture, “was not to create resultant colours that were necessarily more intense than their individual components but rather to duplicate the qualities of transparency and luminosity in halftones and shadows experienced so frequently in nature”. To achieve this aim, he patented what was observed by German physicist Dove and described in Modern Chromatics by Rood, as the optical phenomenon as ‘lustre’. Defined as a vibration that will occur optimally for the viewer only at the correct viewing distance from the canvas. The distance at which the eye struggles toward, but does not yet entirely achieve, a complete synthesis of the separate spots of various colours.
Through the incomplete mixtures of a wide variety of hues, the artist was able to produce a shimmering union of colour and chiaroscuro in neutral tones that were not dull or inert, but subtly warmed or cooled by the lingering optical experience of their dominant constituent hues. This technique of pigment application, which Seurat first adopted in the winter of 1885-86 to facilitate this achievement, was for many a topic of scrutiny and debate. Some members of the public and other artists of the time were disturbed by the apparently impersonal attitude of Seurat and his followers toward the execution of their canvases. Such critics were quick to label the ‘Pointillist’ technique as ‘mechanical’, and hence non-artistic. Ironically, despite the writings of widely influential authorities such as Meyer Schapiro, whose aim it was to defend Seurat’s style and to contest the idea of his principles of art being ‘mechanical’. Seurat may well have in fact felt complimented that his method of execution was so closely associated with this notion, for this artist was a man of radical political persuasion with a strong predilection for popular and ‘democratic’ forms of visual expression.
Schapiro’s words have today taught us to put in to perspective an accurate evaluation of Seurat’s work and ethos. “Seurat’s sympathetic vision of the mechanical in the constructed environment”. Despite those contemporaries who were often perplexed and offended by what they thought was excessive emphasis on scientific principles owing to their conditioning of the popular notion of a dichotomy between ‘intuitive’ art and ‘rational’ science. Subsequent writers and artists such as Matisse had not been alone in attributing value to “something more important” than colour theories in Seurat’s art. Moreover, the artist’s colour theories and methods, which during his lifetime had attracted such a large number of followers and imitators ceased to be influential after his death, not least because many of the former Neo-Impressionists began to wither under the restrictive complexities of the master’s method. In the late 90s, many former Neo-Impressionists returned to the congenial spontaneity of Impressionism or sought alternative stylistic directions.
Following the year of 1886, Seurat’s work evolved further on account of the influences of literary symbolists and the ideas of the brilliant young scientist and esthetician Charles Henry. He focused his attentions on the modernist concept that the emotional content of a work of art may be established and conveyed in exclusively abstract terms, through a predictable and measurable combination of colour, value, and line.
Since his death, well over a century ago, pending literature has by and large been problematic. Critiques and academic studies on the works of Seurat have either created or tried to dispel many obscured misconceptions and oversimplifications that have arisen from attempting to ‘explain’ the complexities of Seurat’s art and theory to the public at large. I believe the problem therein lies as to how and if we can distinguish Seurat as a poet or a technician or both.
It remains ambiguous to many exactly how dependant Seurat was on theory and mathematical formulas, various texts of the artist suggest that nearly all his ‘science’ was still based upon his boyhood readings of Charles Blanc. It is argued that the ‘scientific’ optically illusional dots are nothing more than just small touches of paint in various shapes that shift and flow with the images and are interlocked with the underlying paint. In addition to this argument they do not determine a picture’s coloration because, although they contribute to it, they are only the final strokes atop a complex net of brushwork. Many of Seurat’s major studies did not form a steady progression toward a preconceived composition, and by his own admission it was some years after reading Ogden Rood’s treatise before he learned how to abandon earth colours in favour of exploiting transient colour reactions in nature.
There is no doubting however, the importance attributed to Seurat’s readings in colour science. He wanted to be perceived as a technician of art, and so borrowed from science some of its key rules and principles, including regularity and clarity of pattern. Ultimately, it can be said that Seurat discovered himself as an inventor who manipulated science and colour theory. Even Seurat’s trademark painted borders and frames, one of the most idiosyncratic features of his art were responses by the artist to natural laws. One can see that Seurat’s distinctive scientific approach is based on the fundamental principles of rationalism and discipline. Taken from his notes written on Delacroix, an artist with sizable influence on the career of Seurat, the latter writes, “It’s the strictest application of scientific principles seen through a personality”. His readings of Blanc, David Sutter et al. reveal how influenced he was by notions of rules and order; ultimately this formed the basis for his ambition to reform Impressionism given his social and moral impulses to organise.
As has been the case ever since; ‘science’, during Seurat’s generation, bore the connotations of masculine authority and ‘nature’ resembled femininity. It was an instrument seen universally of assurance and control. Blanc professed that colour itself was unstable, ‘too much a creature of the moment’. It was to need a strong hand, manifest in drawing (‘dessin’), that male conception of form be based on black and white. Seurat’s modernity partly resides in his belief that colour was not a spontaneous instinct as the Impressionists seemed to profess, but an element that had been brought into the realm of science by the men that he had admired: Chevreul, Blanc, Rood, Charles Henry. The artist’s use of colour differed totally from the Impressionists’ precisely because ‘dessin’ and modelling gave laid the foundations of his imagery. Structured by light and dark as well as contrasting colours, the forms in his works have clearly defined shapes. It is this definiteness of shape that made him more preferable amongst literary symbolists over the Impressionists.
If the term ‘scientific’ is to be ascribed to Seurat’s approach, it must be important to consider how his ‘science’ is related with other aspects of his art. Seurat’s statement in 1890 on his ‘esthetique’, theorises how expressive lines evoke that upward lines induce a feeling of gaiety, downward lines sadness and horizontal lines calmness. Particularly evident in his later paintings we can see how the artist had also experimented with notions of emotional significance of linear direction. His treatment of this artistic dimension is too not without influence and education from others. In his school days he had read about Humbert de Superville’s theory in Blanc’s grammaire. This concept was reinforced by his acquaintance after 1886, with Henry who gave the sanction of contemporary science. Hence, the linear substructure of the late paintings seem to be traceable to Humbert’s and Henry’ ideas.
Also, this is as dependent on Seurat’s flat, decorative line, which is inseparable from his penchant for caricature. For Humbert, Henry and Seurat, these lines provided the underlying support for a composition. There were no moves towards abstraction with the experimenting of the linear; on the contrary as Seurat’s caricatural line was a response to café and circus performers, it was in fact a reflection of his social views. This fundamental element, the artist’s complex and witty linear displays, can therefore show his ‘science’, his affinity for the decorative, and his interpretation of Montmartre life.
There is very little argument in deciding Georges Seurat’s mater piece. La Grande Jatte, 1884-86, is the much distinguished and celebrated work, which became such a success de scandale with the public, epitomising and crystallising the very nature and technique of Seurat’s genius as an exponent of scientific theory.
Its preliminary work was executed according to the same principles as those applied during the painting of Une Baignade 1883-84. Details of colour and form, studies of light and shade were collected painstakingly to be finally brought together in a composition with the greatest possible expressive power.
The final piece came about as the result of numerous preparatory sketches, all very reminiscent of photographic negatives. Perhaps not surprising, as many have speculated how influential the invention and development of photography was on the young artist. What is for sure is how meticulously Seurat styled his drawings to create a carefully calculated effect. The drawings evoke strong dream like illusions, a feeling that is too augmented by the tranquil and stable disposition of the characters.
It soon becomes obvious as well, that the figures should strictly be conceived as silhouettes. There is no apparent narrative or contact between one another, which has been achieved by the artist exaggerating the coincident contrasts between the figures and the background. Furthermore, he has created a narrow band of colourless light around the outlines. There is no conventionally central perspective, in fact there is a feeling that the characters are indefinitely placed, thus giving no indication of the depth of the perspective. The ambiance of the mood is that of complete contemplation or there is an engagement with idle pursuits that are devoid of any particular objectivity. Probably, it can be surmised that this account of a group of people is characteristic of the situation the artist chose to visualise. Curiously, however, there is also something inherently frenetic about the composition when considering such features as the restrained movements of the oarsmen or the unrealistically excessive steam emitting from the riverboats.
Such details, which contrive the principles of the composition were not accepted as aesthetic norms until decades later. What also comes to realisation about this piece is how firm and consistent the diagonal composition is, aiding the effects of an abstract construction.
On further reflection, when considering Seurat’s masterful manipulation of colour theory it becomes evident that the piece is composed of two principal zones. One in the foreground with predominantly cold tones of emerald, ultramarine and violet. The more distant zone is dominated by brighter warm colours, greens, yellows etc. These two zones and the directions of movements which run abruptly together, form two fundamental elements of Seurat’s artistic structure. They are the essential ingredients of the picture that communicates its mysterious atmosphere, an impending feeling of disquietude, as though what superficially appears to be tranquil peace on the riverbank is vulnerable to destruction.
With this composition Seurat used every skill in his technical repertoire to create a tension of great artistic effect, experimenting with the phenomenal, the observed and the imagined. As a critique of the piece written by writer and admirer Felix Feneon defines the essence of Seurat’s optical mixtures:
“If, in La Grande Jatte of M. Seurat, one considers, for example, a square decimetre covered with a uniform tone, one finds all its constituent elements on each centimetre of this area, in a swirling crowd of slender maculae. For this greensward in shadow: most of the touches give the local colour of grass; other touches, oranges, are scattered about to express the feeble solar action; still others, purples, introduce the complement of green; a cyan blue, provoked by the proximity of a patch of grass in sunlight, increases its siftings toward the line of demarcation and then thins them out progressively”.
It cannot be doubted that Seurat’s art, and this piece proves so, embodied the progressive tendencies of a middle-class culture. By grounding his technique in scientific method, it was a testimony to the fact that he believed mankind was able to construct order out of sensory data. Charles Blanc’s equation between classicism and social and artistic transformation through science and technological advancement was clearly relevant to Seurat’s work ethos. Furthermore it enables us to reconcile the artist’s dual allegiance to classical form and modern technology.
Bibliography
1 Seurat- The Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Abrams
2 Seurat- in perspective- Norma Broude
3 The Genesis of Modernism
4 Modern Art 1851-1929- R. Brettell
5 Symbolism- R. Goldwater
6 Seurat’s universe- Terrasse
