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 :. | Impression Figure | Frau mit Sonnenschirm | Impresstion Figure | The Countrywoman sat on the Lawn | Standing Female Nude |
Related Artists:
Edouard Brindeau de Jarny
1867-1943
Hans Vredeman de Vries
(1527 - c. 1607) was a Dutch Renaissance architect, painter, and engineer. Vredeman de Vries is known for his publication in 1583 on garden design and his books with many examples on ornaments (1565) and perspective (1604). Born in Leeuwarden and raised in Friesland, in 1546 Vredeman de Vries went to Amsterdam and Kampen. In 1549 he moved to Mechelen where the Superior Court was seating. Sebastian, his brother, was the organist in the local church. Vredeman de Vries designed ornaments for merry parades of Charles V and Philip II. Studying Vitruvius and Sebastiano Serlio, (translated by his teacher Pieter Coecke van Aelst), he became an internationally known specialist in perspective. He continued his career in Antwerp, where he was appointed city architect and fortification engineer. After 1585 he fled the city because of the Spanish occupation by Alessandro Farnese. Then the Protestants had to leave the city within two years. Vredeman de Vries moved to Frankfurt and worked in Wolfenbettel, designing a fortification and a new lay-out of the city for Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Leneburg. After his death the project was cancelled and Hans worked in Hamburg, Danzig (1592), Prague (1596) and Amsterdam (1600). On his trips Vredeman was accompanied by his son Paul and Hendrick Aerts. Vredeman de Vries tried to get an appointment at the University of Leiden in 1604. It is not known when and where Hans Vredeman de Vries died, however, it is recorded that his son Paul was living in Hamburg when he inherited.
Joos van Winghe
(1544, Brussels - 1603, Frankfurt), was a Flemish Renaissance painter. According to Karel van Mander he was born in Brussels in 1544 and travelled to Rome where he lived with a Cardinal for four years. When he returned to Brussels he became court painter to the Prince of Parma until he left the country in 1584 as a consequence of the Fall of Antwerp. He settled in Frankfurt and his place at Parma's court was taken by Otto van Veen. He died in 1603, aged 61. Van Mander mentions several pieces by his hand in Brussels, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam. According to the RKD who spent four years travelling in Rome, Parma, and Paris before returning to Brussels in 1568. In 1585 he moved to Frankfurt, where he became a citizen (burgher) in 1588 and stayed. He was the father of the painter Jeremias van Winghe, and is known for portraits and genre works, as well as book title pages.