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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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GEORGES SEURAT1859 - 1891

The Artist-Scientist

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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.”

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~ Visited Louvre; studied works of:- Classical Greek sculpture- Italian & northern

Renaissance (e.g. Piero della Francesca)

Piero della Francesca

The Flagellation c. 1469

Influences

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Influences Piero della Francesca- Early artist of the Italian Renaissance.- Interested in geometry & mathematics.- Painted mainly religious works with simple serenity & clarity.

The Baptism1442

The Flagellation1469

Influences

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~ Also influenced by:- Ingres- Rembrandt- Delacroix

Influences

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Influences

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

- Works characterized by purity of line, enamel-like colouring, calligraphic line & expressive contour.

The Valpincon Bather1808

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Rembrandt

- Use of luxuriant brushwork & rich colour.- Master of light & shadow; studied lines, light, shade & colour.

Anatomy Lecture of Dr Nicholaes Tulp1632

Influences

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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 Styx1822

Influences

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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 Echo1883

Woman Fishing1884 - 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 Seurat’s Pointillist technique

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Examples of Seurat’s 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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- Derived from Seurat’s “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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Seurat’suse of the Golden Section

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Golden Section

- Known as the Divine proportion.

A M B

- 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/11-x = x squareX = 0.6180339

1-x x

- 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 Seurat’s Paintings

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Bathers at Asnieres1883 - 4

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

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Superimposition of the golden rectangle on Seurats’s artwork

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1-xx

1-x/x = x/1

The Golden Section and the Golden Rectangle

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La Grande Jatte1884 - 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 Courbevoie1886 - 7

Can you point out the uses of the Golden Section?

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Le Chahut1889 - 90

Can you point out the uses of the Golden

Section?

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The Circus1890

Can you point out the uses of the Golden

Section?

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Woman powdering Herself1890

Can you point out the uses of the Golden

Section?

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Seurat’s 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 Jatte1884 - 86

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Georges SeuratLa Grande Jatte1884 - 86

Auguste RenoirLa Moulin de la Galette

1876

What similarities can you see in these two works?

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Seurat attached symbolic meaning to lines & colours:

Cheerfulness

Sad

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Seurat’s Influence

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Henri Matisse

Luxe calm et volupte

1904-5

Vincent van Gogh

Interior of a restaurant

1887

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Giacomo BallaStreet Light

1909

Pointillist technique was influential in the Italian art movement of Futurism.

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The theory of colour & light were later explored by the Abstract Expressionists & Colour-Field painters of WW2.

Mark RothkoOrange & 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

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1. Name TWO influences on Seurat.

2. What is the aim of Seurat’s 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 Seurat’s work.

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Interpreting Seurat

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Bathers at Asnieres1883 - 4

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Bathers at Asnieres1883 - 4

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. http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/georges-seurat-bathers-at-asnieres

Also read up article from http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2010/apr/14/george-seurat-bathers-at-asnieres-art

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In Seurat’s paintings. we can find:

- Strong interest in an exact & articulate composition.~ Emphasis on compositional balance.

- Use of simplified silhouetted shapes.

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La Grande Jatte1884 - 86

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 Seurat’s 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.

http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_Impressionist/pages/IMP_7.shtml

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La Grande Jatte1884 - 86

Creating La Grande JatteFor A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 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.

Stage:Seurat used as his setting a small section of the elongated island in the Seine just beyond Paris’s 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 island’s social cachet. Seurat focused instead on the green park at the far northwestern tip, facing the town of Courbevoie.

Cast:Seurat’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.

http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/seurat/seurat_themes.html

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La Grande Jatte1884 - 86

Plotlines:Unlike the setting, Seurat’s plot is not readily identifiable. La Grande Jatte conveys grand solemnity in counterpoint with a wry sense of humor. Seurat’s 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 timelessness—in the frozen quality of the figures—while 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 sources—ancient and modern, serious and comic—to 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.

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.