Neo-Impressionism
Started: 1884
Ended: 1935
KEY ARTISTS
 | Georges Seurat Quick View  Artist Page |
| Georges Seurat |  |
| Georges-Pierre Seurat was a French painter who gave rise to the Post- and Neo-Impressionist artistic styles of the late nineteenth century. Seurat's greatest contribution to modern art was his development of Pointillism, a style of painting in which small dots of paint were applied to create a cohesive image. Combining the science of optics with painterly emotion, Pointillism evoked a visual harmony never before seen in modern art. Art Story: Georges Seurat Artist Page | ||
 | Albert Dubois-Pillet Quick View Further External Info  |
| Albert Dubois-Pillet | |
| A self-taught artist who was also a career military officer, Albert Dubois-Pillet was a leader of the Neo-Impressionist movement. Contributing the first Neo-Impressionist portrait to the movement, Dubois-Pillet also explored the depths of Pointillism in his many luminous landscapes. Further External Info | ||
 | Camille Pissarro Quick View Artist Page |
| Camille Pissarro | |
| Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painter. Known as the "Father of Impressionism," he used his own painterly style to depict urban daily life, landscapes, and rural scenes. Art Story: Camille Pissarro Artist Page | ||
 | Vincent van Gogh Quick View Artist Page |
| Vincent van Gogh | |
| Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch painter, commonly associated with the Post-Impressionist period. As one of the most prolific and experimental artists of his time, van Gogh was a spontaneous painter and a master of color and perspective. Troubled by personal demons all his life, many historians speculate that van Gogh suffered from a Bipolar disorder. Art Story: Vincent van Gogh Artist Page | ||
 | Paul Signac Quick View Artist Page |
| Paul Signac | |
| Paul Signac was a major Post-Impressionist who along with Georges Seurat developed the painting style known as Neo-Impressionism (also known as Pointillism or Divisionism) in which small and precise dots of color were used to compose a large, bright, and colorful picture. Art Story: Paul Signac Artist Page | ||
 | Henri-Edmond Cross Quick View Further External Info |
| Henri-Edmond Cross | |
| Henri-Edmond Cross was a French painter and printmaker. His Pointillist work proved to be very influential to Henri Matisse and to the development of the Fauvist movement. Further External Info | ||
"I painted like that because I wanted to get through to something new - a kind of painting that was my own."
Summary of Neo-Impressionism
In the latter part of the 19th century, Neo-Impressionism foregrounded the science of optics and color to forge a new and methodical technique of painting that eschewed the spontaneity and romanticism that many Impressionists celebrated. Relying on the viewer's capacity to optically blend the dots of color on the canvas, the Neo-Impressionists strove to create more luminous paintings that depicted modern life. With urban centers growing and technology advancing, the artists sought to capture people's changing relationship with the city and countryside. Many artists in the following years adopted the Neo-Impressionist technique of Pointillism, the application of tiny dots of pigment, which opened the door to further explorations of color and eventually abstract art.
Key Ideas
Beginnings:
By the mid-1880s, feeling that Impressionism's emphasis on the play of light was too narrow, a new generation of artists, including Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent van Gogh, who would later be referred to more generally as Post-Impressionists, began developing new approaches to line, color, and form. In 1879 after leaving the École des Beaux-Arts where he'd studied for a year, Seurat said he wanted "to find something new, my own way of painting." He particularly valued color intensity in painting, and took extensive notes on the use of color by the painter Eugène Delacroix. He began studying color theory and the science of optics and embarked on a path that would lead him to develop a new style he called Chromoluminarism.
Important Art and Artists of Neo-Impressionism | |
  | A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte (1884-1886)Artist: Georges Seurat Artwork description & Analysis: This most famous and influential Neo-Impressionist work depicts a cross section of Paris society enjoying a Sunday afternoon in the park on an island in the Seine River just at the gates of Paris. Sunday was the time that middle-class Parisians escaped the city to enjoy the outdoors. The people primarily gather in small groups of two or three or sit alone in proximity to others. It is the relationship between these people that creates a sense of modernity, with its distance and disconnection, and nervous tension that lends the work an air of mystery. Oil on canvas - Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL |
 | La Dame à la Robe Blanche (Woman in White) (1886-1887)Artist: Albert Dubois-Pillet Artwork description & Analysis: This portrait of an unidentified woman was the first Neo-Impressionist portrait. As many of the group concentrated on depicting color in its greatest luminosity, their subject matter tended toward landscapes and cityscapes, but a few artists went beyond such subjects. The MAMC in Saint-Étienne, France has dubbed her "Madame P," but, at the time of the work's inception, Félix Fénéon called her Mademoiselle B. Seated in an upholstered chair, placed before a background wallpapered with floral arabesques, the woman dressed in white, a blue flower on her breast, looks with an indifferent gaze past the viewer. Oil on canvas - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Saint-Étienne, France |
 | La Récolte des Foins, Éragny (1887)Artist: Camille Pissarro Artwork description & Analysis: This painting depicts a hay harvesting scene in the countryside near Éragny, where the artist lived with his family from 1884 until his death in 1903. In the center of the canvas, a woman uses a hayfork while behind her others do similar work in a brightly lit field punctuated by hay stacks. Oil on canvas - Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam |
More Neo-Impressionism Artwork and Analysis:
Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
" Movement Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
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First published on 24 Aug 2017. Updated and modified regularly. 
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