French Pointillist Painter, 1859-1891 Georges-Pierre Seurat (2 December 1859 ?C 29 March 1891) was a French painter and draftsman. His large work Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, his most famous painting, altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-impressionism, and is one of the icons of 19th century painting Seurat took to heart the color theorists' notion of a scientific approach to painting. Seurat believed that a painter could use color to create harmony and emotion in art in the same way that a musician uses counterpoint and variation to create harmony in music. Seurat theorized that the scientific application of color was like any other natural law, and he was driven to prove this conjecture. He thought that the knowledge of perception and optical laws could be used to create a new language of art based on its own set of heuristics and he set out to show this language using lines, color intensity and color schema. Seurat called this language Chromoluminarism. His letter to Maurice Beaubourg in 1890 captures his feelings about the scientific approach to emotion and harmony. He says "Art is Harmony. Harmony is the analogy of the contrary and of similar elements of tone, of color and of line, considered according to their dominance and under the influence of light, in gay, calm or sad combinations". Seurat's theories can be summarized as follows: The emotion of gaiety can be achieved by the domination of luminous hues, by the predominance of warm colors, and by the use of lines directed upward. Calm is achieved through an equivalence/balance of the use of the light and the dark, by the balance of warm and cold colors, and by lines that are horizontal. Sadness is achieved by using dark and cold colors and by lines pointing downwards.  Related Paintings of Georges Seurat :. | L-ll de la Grand Jatte | Houses at Le Raincy | Impression Figure | Impression Figure | Sunday Afternoon of the Island of La Grande Jatte (mk09) |
Related Artists:
Gustaf Rydberg
painted Skansk slatt med pilvall - motiv fran Viby in 1923 Swedish, 1835-1933
Laurent de la Hyre
1606-1656 French Laurent de la Hyre Galleries He became a pupil of Georges Lallemand and studied the works of Primaticcio at Fontainebleau, but never visited Italy. La Hyre is associated with the transitional period before the introduction of the French Baroque by Simon Vouet. His picture of Pope Nicholas V opening the crypt in which he discovers the corpse of St. Francis of Assisi standing (located at the Louvre) was executed in 1630 for the Capuchin friars of the Marais; its gravity and sobriety seems to have been influential for the next generation of French painters, particularly Eustache Le Sueur. The Louvre contains eight other works, and paintings by La Hyre are in the museums of Strasburg, Rouen and Le Mans. Laurent de La Hyre: Perspective (drawing).His drawings, of which the British Museum possesses a fine example, Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, are treated as seriously as his paintings, and sometimes show simplicity and dignity of effect. The example of the Capuchins, for whom he executed several other works in Paris, Rouen and Fecamp, was followed by the goldsmith's company, for whom he produced in 1635 St. Peter healing the Sick (Louvre) and the Conversion of St Paul in 1637. In 1646, with eleven other artists, he founded the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Richelieu called La Hyre to the Palais Royal; Pierre S??guier, Gedeon Tallemant des R??aux and many others entrusted him with important works of decoration; for the Gobelins he designed a series of large compositions. La Hyre painted also a great number of portraits, and in 1654 united in one work for the town-hall of Paris those of the principal dignitaries of the municipality.
Cornelis Bega
1632-1664 Dutch Cornelis Bega Galleries Dutch painter, draughtsman and etcher. He was born into prosperous circumstances; his mother, Maria Cornelis, inherited half the estate (gold, silver, paintings, drawings and prints) and all of the red chalk drawings of her father, Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, a renowned Mannerist artist. Begas father was Pieter Jansz. Begijn (d 1648), a gold- and silversmith. Like other family members, Bega was probably Catholic. Houbrakens claim that Bega studied with Adriaen van Ostade is likely to be correct; this was probably before 24 April 1653, when Bega joined Vincent Laurentsz. van der Vinne in Frankfurt for a journey through Germany, Switzerland and France. Bega had returned to Haarlem by 1 September 1654, at which time he joined the Guild of St Luke; he was already a competent draughtsman, as indicated by his first extant dated work, Interior with a Nursing Mother (1652; Frankfurt am Main, Stedel. Kstinst.), and by a remarkable double portrait (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.) drawn by him and Leendert van der Cooghen in 1654.