Chapter 13.2Post-Impressionism

The Impressionist movement had freed artists from traditional techniques and Renaissance concepts of

space and form.Building on this new freedom, Post-Impressionist artists worked in a variety of new, personal styles which influenced future modern art movements.

Georges Seurat’s painting style displayed his obsession with the contemporary scientific analysis of color optics, while utilizing a traditional, solid picture

structure. Cezanne experimented with pictorial structure and shifts in perspective. His innovations

influenced the later Cubist movement. Van Gogh and Gauguin were more involved with the expressive

possibilities of vivid color, and their artwork opened the path for Expressionism and Fauvism.

Georges Seurat (1859-1891)

Seurat’s work was influenced by scientific color theory of physics. He painted with four basic hues —red,

blue, yellow and green — and related hues carefully applied to the canvas as broken marks and dots of color. From a distance, the viewer’s eyes visually mix these color fragments.

This technique is called pointillism.

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is Seurat’s most famous pointillist work.

This large, carefully planned painting was preceded by many preliminary sketches and several smaller “trial run” color paintings.

Le Grande Jatte was preceded by many preliminary sketches and several smaller “trial run”

color paintings.

Le Grande Jatte was preceded by many preliminary sketches and several smaller

“trial run” color paintings.

Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, 1888, oil on canvas

This small oil painting is typical of Seurat’s spontaneous color sketches and studies. The studies tend to have a

more natural feeling than the larger, formally planned out works.

Bathers at Asnieres, oil on canvas, 79” x 118” 1884Although this painting included Impressionist concerns

regarding atmospheric perspective and the color of light, it also contains a monumental sense of form which is

classically derived.

This large work was carefully planned out, as evidenced by Seurat’s delicate preparatory

drawings — which have their own stand-alone

beauty.Notice how the artist used the grain of the drawing paper to achieve a visual

texture which simulated his painting technique.

The Side Show, oil on canvas, 1888, 40” x 59”This subject is rendered in artificial light instead of daylight. The

strict construction of verticals and horizontals makes clear Seurat’s concern with the architecture of his pictures. It is a very deliberate,

methodical, unemotional presentation.

Notice the loose, more painterly feeling of the color study made in advance of the formal

“finished” work.

Seurat’s meticulous sense

of rigorous pictorial balance and rhythmic,

geometrical design was

influenced by Renaissance

artists such as Piero della

Francesca, seen above.

Seurat developed a unique, personal drawing style which simulated the mosaic-like visual texture of his paintings, but without the charm

of his color technique.