Points Made

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The New York Sun

Pointillism is given a comprehensive survey in the exhibition Neo-Impressionism and the Dream of Realities: Painting, Poetry, Music, now on view at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.

Led by painter Georges Seurat (1859-1891), Pointillist painting technique was based largely on new scientific theories about color perception. Instead of mixing paints together on a palette, Seurat and his followers placed small dots of colors side by side on canvas, allowing strokes of color to mix optically to create various shades and hues. Seurat’s innovative painting process, developed in the 1880s, foreshadowed today’s industrial printing techniques which use imperceptibly small dots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks to create all kinds of images.

Seurat’s compositions had to be carefully planned and the artist made numerous preparatory drawings and oil studies. His process was in direct contrast to that of the Impressionists, who often completed their en plein air paintings in a day. Seurat’s “Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, Normandy,” 1888, a superb Pointillist work, portrays the cliffs of Normandy against the blue of the English Channel. Here Seurat’s colored dots are carefully organized to delineate between grassy areas and rock, while the sea methodically fades from deep to pale blue nearer the shore. The clouds are stylized into blue and yellow layers and contrast against the landscape.

Pointillist Paul Signac (1863-1935) was a close friend of Seurat’s. In 1891, the year of Seurat’s untimely death, Signac moved to the south of France where he made the painting “Adagio. Setting Sun. Sardine Fishing. Opus 221 from the series The Sea, The Boats, Concarneau.” This work shows a row of fishing boats on the horizon at sunset. The artist’s hand is highly visible in the gradual shift of colors from dark blue to creamy pink to bright coral, back to creamy pink and fading into soft blue at the top. The tiny boats are sketchy and look like toys. In his title Signac compares this painting with a musical composition, perhaps calling attention to the rhythmic function of the boats in this picture.

“The Louvre at the Pont du Carrousel at Night,” 1890, by Maximilien Luce (1858-1941), is a playful picture. The pink and yellow dots that describe the glowing lights of Paris fade into late night’s deep blue, while dark red and blue dots cast the quay into shadows. Electric lights across the bridge are reflected and magnified in a rippling Seine.

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), a generation older than Seurat and Signac, also enthusiastically embraced Neo-Impressionism for several years. By the time Pissarro met the younger artists, he had already studied the theories of color division of scientists Michel Eugène Chevreul and Ogden Rood and was implementing their color ideas in his paintings. The scientific system of pointillism, as defined by Seurat, appealed to Pissarro’s rational temperament.

For subject matter, Pissarro looked back to his previous paintings and sketches. Included in this exhibition is a fan-shaped gouache he made in 1890 on coarse brown paper, showing peasant women putting poles in the ground for peas. Pissarro took this motif, changed the position of the four women and created a closely cropped, vertical Pointillist painting, “Peasant Women Planting Poles in the Ground,” 1891. While many Pointillist canvases are noted for their uncanny sense of stillness, this painting pounds with rhythm, created by the women’s active poses and the vibrancy of the high-chroma dots filling every element.

In addition to works by Seurat, Signac, Luce and Pissarro, this extraordinary exhibit includes paintings by Henri-Edmond Cross (1856-1910), and Théo van Rysselberghe (1862-1926), as well as lesser-known artists Charles Angrand (1854-1926), Albert Dubois-Pillet (1846-1890), Alfred William Finch (1854-1930), Georges Lemmen (1865-1916), and Henry van de Velde (1863-1957). Offering a variety of superb Neo-Impressionist paintings, visitors to the Phillips have rare chance for unhurried contemplation and comparison.

Neo-Impressionism and the Dream of Realities: Painting, Poetry, Music,” on view at the Phillips Collection, 1600 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009, 202-387-2151, www.phillipscollection.org.

More information is available about Ms. Saul’s work at www.pissarrosplaces.com and www.artbookannex.com.


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