XIX century was the era of the gains of scientific and technical progress, the belief in the immensity of the human mind to the possibility of rational comprehension of the phenomena of reality. For painters at that time becomes the main work with nature. Impressionists seek, either directly on the nature, the rain and wind, or in bright sunlight, from the beginning to the end, to work on their landscapes, passing on the canvas directly and precisely my visual impression. World is revealed to them in their immediate charms, and most importantly - catch it available to the human eye.
Impressionists often called the pioneers and founders of modern art. They established a direct link between the eye of the painter and light. Hence - the movement to return to nature, which is the source of all impressions. At the same time - absolute trust in the vision of the artist, his or her identity. Seurat Georges - an artist who entered the world of art, at a very important time of the impressionist movement.
Georges-Pierre Seurat was born on December 2, 1859 in a wealthy family ministry officials. Unlike many fellow artists, for him painting was not a way of earning a livelihood, and, above all, the ability to implement your own attitude. While still a student at the Lycée Georges attended art school. Seurat was later admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Henri Lehmann, a follower of Ingres. From his early years, the future master of the brush stood out not only diligence and a keen interest in different artistic movements, but also the independence and insularity, sometimes passing into the reserve. Acquaintance with the work of the Impressionists was to Georges Seurat starting point to seek an independent path in the visual arts.
The artist was always interested in all the new theories and ideas, read the scientific literature in optics, studied heritage of the old masters painting. Eugene Delacroix experiments with color and paints prompted by Georges Seurat on the idea of developing their own artistic methods. Having an analytical mind, Seurat came to the conclusion that a mixture of individual point smears gives a much stronger visual impact than traditional methods of painting techniques or fellow Impressionists. His paintings all parts and fragments were composed of dots of pure colors contrasted with each other.
Artist attached great importance to the construction of the composition of his works. They do not have any unnecessary detail, everything is thought out with a truly scientific thoroughness, calibrated to the smallest detail. This approach required considerable effort. Unlike the Impressionists who worked very quickly and sought to seize an instant impression, Seurat worked on each of his paintings for a long time.
Founder current neo-impressionism (divisionism, pointillism) - Georges Seurat wrote large figure compositions and landscapes. Studying the laws of light and color, optical effects, Sulphur was trying to create a scientific basis for the decision of color, light and air and space applications. But, as no other French artist of that time, drawing played in the creative laboratory Seurat huge role.
In the figures, Seurat is closer to the original sources of his inspiration, he not only looks into the model, but also listens to himself, plunging into a long contemplation.
Shadow, darkness, so often present in his graphic works are reminiscent of dusk, evening, night - including time of day, when the mind tends to stay, and the subconscious mind, intuition come to life, ready to take over the man as soon as he falls asleep. Seurat drawings before painting, brought him success - in the Salon in 1883 adopted two of them portraits of mothers and Aman-Jean.
Portrait of Edmond-François Aman-Jean, 1883
mom
In the figures, starts to appear very peculiar world that he is a world of stopped time, frozen movements radiating quivering and enchanting poetry. Beyond the world dominates the silence, the silence is almost tangible, akin silence reigning sometimes in our dreams. Dense and compact form are separated from one another. Nothing can break this evil spell that brought them into a stupor and permanently isolated from the environment, condemned to imprisonment, immortalized in their own reality. This world is also a world of silence fatal loneliness.
"Ever since I picked up a brush - he wrote in a letter Feneonu - I was looking for a 1876 - 1884's optical formula ..." In painting, the artist sought to understand the mind of the whole mystery of creation. Large picture size (2x3m) "Bathing in Asnieres" (1883-1884) opens a new period of the artist.
Kupanie in Asnieres (clickable)
The artist painted this work during the year, but the picture has not been admitted to the official Salon.
Disclaimer jury Silent perceived as an insult. He did not get down to the reasons for this attitude to oneself; unlike so many of rejected candidates, he did not try to explain it to those or other circumstances. A closed, self-righteous, Seurat had a monstrous ego, suspicious vulnerability characteristic of people who recognize their superiority, never exposing his show, but not suffering when this superiority overlooked or minimized. For him, the issue was resolved once and for all: never again he would not seek participation in the Salon. Learning in mid-April that the artists are not admitted, as he intend to establish an association and to arrange their own show, he decided to join them. His measured gait author of "Bathing" came to the cafe "Montesquieu," where artists gathered rebels and announced his decision to join them by paying the required eleven francs.
The man lives and moves among what he sees;
but he sees only what is capable of recognizing.
Valerie.
Painting "Bathing in Asnieres" was shown at the exhibition of the Group of Independent Artists in 1884 in the pavilion of the Tuileries. Discover and mutual influence of representatives of the new directions of painting helped Georges Seurat find like-minded people. One of the distinct fans pointillism (divisionism) was Paul Signac, who wrote primarily in the impressionistic style. Signac voluntarily assumed the role of chief ideologue and spokesman ideas silent and closed Seurat, largely contributed to the growth of its authority, as the founder of a particular artistic movement. Amateur sailing and rowing Signac had his boat and often swam with Seurat from Anyer to the island of La Grande Jatte. Thus began work on the painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte ....
Voskresny day on the island of La Grande Jatte.
Famous painting of enormous size (3h2m) is a prime example of pointillism and is considered one of the most remarkable paintings XIX-th century, a period of post-impressionism. The painting is part of the collection of the Chicago Art Institute.
Critics have called pointillism of Seurat "Neo", an attempt to turn the romantic impressionism impressionism in research. Pointillist paintings could be seen only from a distance, near, they turned into a mosaic of color mess.
For example Gauguin tried to eradicate passion point method of fellow artists. Divisionism - but an enemy that must be overcome, and over which the sarcastic Gauguin has not ceased to be ironic. All those around him sang a song about a point.
Drawing, do not go into a rage.
Kohl landscape you have in mind,
Not a day, and you two watch
And mumbling and muttering:
"The exact try to put points,
One, two, three - three tiny spots "
Besides, who would blame you,
That, well, they are round too,
Answer important haughtily:
"Handsome and their root form.
Cancel afar point!
One, two, three - three tiny spots "
Nevertheless, it was a new powerful word in the visual arts. Genre paintings and landscapes Georges Seurat reflect, first of all, the inner world of the artist, who saw another reality different from the other eye. Seurat was given to this element in its entirety. By its very nature, Georges was a man closed as indifferent to everything that does not apply to his work. It is important to only his art. He continued to climb the rugged trails leading to the top of mountains.
Car up the hill, and the road going downhill, it's the same way.
Heraclitus.
Even Signac, who was in a relationship with the artist and knew besides his aesthetic ideas about what he thinks and feels just like a man, said: "In Jorge sometimes artist and never was revealed - a man. Once he was able to say all that he wanted man disappeared. "
However, life got into his impenetrable privacy. It is the existence of a woman entered.
Her name was Madeleine Knobloch. She was twenty years old. It's hard to imagine a more unexpected friend for such intelligent man like Seurat. All that inspired him with disgust or horror, all that justifies his asceticism creator encouraged to create, so to speak, the mineral world, embodied in this woman. With bright, reveal the beauty, Madeleine Knobloch different mediocre mind; if Seurat - the embodiment of reason, it is - the flesh itself. Its many features are not too heavy to bear no trace of spirituality, which would highlight or set off her plump face empty talkers. She belonged to the category of girls that instinct, as soon as they ripen, closes in the narrow confines of the women's world and that in anticipation of a man showing interest only to the circumference of his chest or hip size. With its fleshy neck, shoulders rounded, plump hands, swollen breasts, bulging of the close of the corset, she radiated the essence of the female animal in all its freshness. It was a body. Matter that beckoned, drew to itself, matter is alive, allowing her to continue living. Yes, the master of divisionism and this woman were an odd couple. Life waylaid Seurat, and he was trapped instinct.
Love has led to the fact that the artist has focused its efforts in the field new to him - in the genre of portraiture. Winter 1888-1889 years he draws Madeleine pudryaschuyusya for a small dressing table with curved legs. This table and stand on it oval mirror, decorated with a pink ribbon and supported by curved metal whips differ defiantly bad taste. But thanks to the skillful stylization Seurat extracts from this circumstance bright decorative effect. In addition, it comes in a strange thought to draw the background yourself, as reflected in the mirror hanging on the wall in a bamboo frame. Later, he will destroy your image and replace it with a pot of flowers.
Something was happening around him. Something always happened. Human sea similar to the sea, in which Seurat saw the image of the eternal dream, but the excitement never stops. Everything in it is in motion, it is the volatility, and the decline of the rush, boiling ambition colliding with each other; wave rolled on one another, covered by a universal desire for life, and carries away lulling swell time.
Birth of a child only briefly distracted from the work of Seurat. In choosing a name, he showed no ingenuity of Georges Seurat's name was Pierre; son he gave the name of Pierre Georges. "I roll on all cylinders, just zhivopishuschy locomotive" - these words that Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo from Arles, Seurat could well be attributed to his account.
Naturschitsy
Seurat hurry to complete the "Can-Can", he saw in this story a chance to show that his method is able to convey the movement is no worse than the rest. However, efforts are directed not only Seurat to ensure that convey movement. He wants - and this is also an innovation - to express an atmosphere of fun, but fun to do, as it should be for such a motive. Feel like fun, so alien to his nature, the artist achieves by selecting the lines and colors. But added to this, and a certain percentage of humor.
Without allowing himself the slightest respite, absorbed the implementation of its task, putting the brush only late at night, and each time later, Seurat tirelessly continued to work on the painting, if it should flush the need to finish it quickly, to submit final proof of the universality of his method, if the proximity goals suddenly whetted it to the extreme, plunged into a feverish state, encouraging work with renewed vigor. If only ... If only the artist's soul is not stirred a feeling if only some anxious voice he did not whisper a word familiar to everyone - the prevention of Ecclesiastes:
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it on forces; because in the grave, whither thou goest, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. "
Limit mental stress does not allow him to listen more attentively to the hum of the human swarm around him. With a head having gone to the exhausting work, it does not come with its narrow paths, moving forward at the cost of serious and sustained effort, even more indifferent than ever, everything that does not directly affect creativity or theoretical reflection - his work, his thoughts; He works alone, day after day, night after night, drawn by a single passion.
Much work "Cancan", now housed in Chicago, created a sensation and was perceived as a software product of Neo-Impressionism. But the creative development of Seurat continued further. He is interested in not only the impact of certain optical combinations on the retina, but also emotional divergent lines and movements.
He refers to the works of well-known scientists, in particular to the "Essay on Absolute Signs in Art" (1827-1832) Humbert de Syupervilya that bound orientation of different lines with the expression of emotional state. He met published in 1885, "Introduction to scientific aesthetics" Charles Henry, which set out his theory of "geometrical image expression," argued that the lines going from left to right, bottom to top, from the bottom to the outside, are perceived as happy, stimulating, and reaching from right to left, top to bottom, in depth - as disturbing, depressing. Red and yellow colors excite, green-purple oppressed. Henry believed that "man has an innate mathematical sense" that there are immutable laws of harmony.
To the world of spectacles and performances in their story applies to the last, unfinished painting Seurat - "Circus" (1890-1891). This theme of the circus as a reflection of the world and the world as a strange circus.
The sons of men snared,
For man does not know his time.
scripture
"Last winter in Paris against flu epidemic (it was then called influenza) a lot of people died, and recently Dr. de Bellio told Pissarro notify difteritnoy influenza. Than really sick Seurat? Disease, suddenly struck him with dizzying rapidity progressed, undermining powerful body of the artist. on Friday, he, shivering in the chill, took to his parents' house on the Boulevard Magenta. Seurat tossed in delirium, lying on his bed in a dark corner of the apartment. temperature rises, pulse quickens ... Sixteen days, thirteen days, eight days . whether he will have time to finish the term of "Circus"? .. Once this error in the image horses ... Three days, two days. Benches amphitheater in the background just outlined. Arts - a harmony ... two days ... All of this fight lasts for submission of life for to immortalize it in mineralovoy stillness, as if extending under the August sun blinding the boundless sea. in art weight should be conscious ... Knut M. Luayalya winds snake between shadows and light. Shadows are calculated. Light is calculated. Arabesque whip calculated. Oval circus calculated. Rising rays of the paintings, filled with pleasure and movement, determined in accordance with the theories of Charles Henry. Hell of a metronome ticking off your bill. Heart pounding in his chest glowing. The mind can do anything. The most perfect form, said David Syutter - is the one that is able to fully master the mind. The mind can do anything. Need to look at the nature of the mind's eye. The mind can do anything. Mind ...
In the morning, on Sunday March 29 - it was Easter Sunday - followed by a brain hemorrhage. The artist still struggling. Pants. Wheezing. Then, his massive body relaxes on a bed in a dark corner of the room where the furniture of mahogany casts fuzzy purple reflections. On the walls hang numerous religious images. The one-armed father want his son a big funeral. The clock strikes ten.
It found.
What is gained?
Eternity! merged
It sea and the sun! ...
Georges - Pierre Seurat died March 29, 1891 at the age of thirty-two years old, just a few months before the death of his son. Son of the artist from the Madeleine Knobloch, infected, dying April 14, May 24 Raincy dies and his father. A child who has been waiting for Madeleine and not see the light.
As for the creative heritage of Seurat, then it will be a sad thing .....
Read the book by Perryusho dedicated Seurat Georges - Henri Perruchot "La vie de Seurat."
Translated from the French. G.Gennisa; Afterword. K.Bogemskoy
here
Hamish Blakely SimpaticoGorgeous eternal genius
not afraid of forgetting.
Mallarme.
Hamish Blakely Paintings
