Radical Harmony, Helene Kröller-Müller’s Neo-Impressionists is the official title of the National Gallery blockbuster, on until 8th February. But I prefer the NG’s informal monicker: ‘join the dots, from Seurat to Van Gogh’.
It is rooms full of dotty pictures which, seen all at once, are overwhelming. Individually fine, but together def too much. Here is what the NG has to say about this style.
”Georges Seurat’s innovative painting technique had its roots in the well-established theory that opposing colours on the colour wheel – yellow and violet, orange and blue, red and green – make each other appear more vivid when juxtaposed. . . . Seurat determined that even greater luminosity could be achieved if pure colours remained unmixed and were applied in small touches placed side by side. . . . Seurat and the movement’s early adopters such as Paul Signac (1863-1935) believed these separate dots of pure colour would fuse in the eye, making the surface of the canvas appear to shimmer. This effect was ideally suited to capturing glowing light in landscape.”
Because I am perverse, I am going to show you three portraits of women by a less well known artist: Théo van Rysselberghe (1862-1926).
Different style but the confident, full length pose reminds me of a John Singer Sargent portrait – they were contemporaries. The sitter (stander?) is Théo van R’s wife, Maria. There will be a Sargent exhibition at the Met next spring, by the way.
This is Anna Boch, a musician, intellectual and visionary collector as well as a painter. Her multifaceted abilities are hinted at by the objects in the background but I will remember her as supposedly the only person to buy a work by Van Gogh in his lifetime.
This unnamed woman seems contemplative as she reads. Thëo’s friend Paul Signac felt that he had betrayed the principles of Pointillism, not sticking to the rigours of Neo-Impressionist theory in his portraits. He was proved correct as later Thëo completely gave up being dotty. Now for something completely different although it may ring a bell.
Of course it does, it is a study for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, by Georges Seurat (1859-1891). He did about a hundred which makes you think. I was fortunate to see the completed work on a business trip to Chicago in the 1990s and of course have seen Sunday in the Park with George; the latter a musical, not his best, by Stephen Sondheim.
Thank you for explaining a painting I saw a number of years ago in the National Gallery in Ottawa. It is called The Smiths and I came to a halt in front of it, transfixed by the creation of movement using merely paint. It was painted by W. Blair Bruce, recognized as Canada’s first impressionist painter. I was fascinated by the effect and upon closer inspection could see the small red & blue bits of paint that disappeared when viewed from farther back and just became movement: the steam rising, the wood burning, the men sweating. The effect is totally lost in the photograph posted on the Gallery’s website, but I was so transfixed, I made everyone else in our viewing party that afternoon stop and look.