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Indepth Arts News:
"Neo-Impressionism: The Circle of Paul Signac
"
2001-10-02 until 2001-12-30
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, NY,
USA
To complement the major exhibition Signac 1863-1935: Master
Neo-Impressionist, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present paintings,
drawings, and watercolors – selected entirely from the Museum's own
collections – by Charles Angrand, Henri-Edmond Cross, Maximilien Luce,
Hippolyte Petitjean and other artists who, like Paul Signac, exuberantly
followed the groundbreaking techniques of optical painting introduced in the
1880s by Georges Seurat.
Flourishing from 1886 to 1906, the artists who worked in this avant-garde
style came to be called Neo-Impressionists. The term was coined by art critic
Félix Fénéon in his review of the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition
(1886) to describe the work of Paul Signac, Georges Seurat, and,
remarkably, Camille Pissarro, pioneers of a daring new vision that deviated
distinctly from the waning Impressionist school.
Neo-Impressionism extended its reach to Belgium as well, where an
avant-garde group known as Les Vingts (Les XX) embraced Seurat's ideals
following the 1887 exhibition in Brussels of his masterpiece Sunday
Afternoon on the Island of the Grand Jatte. Théo van Rysselberghe was a
member of this highly visible Belgian circle, and the exhibition features
several examples of his work. Even Henri Matisse briefly experimented with
a Neo-Impressionist technique, prompted in part by the publication of
Signac's manifesto From Eugène Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism and by the
invitation to paint with Signac at his Saint-Tropez residence. Matisse spent
nearly a year in Signac's company.
Neo-Impressionists eschewed the random spontaneity of Impressionism. They
sought to impose order on the visual experience of nature through codified,
scientific principles. An optical theory known as mélange optique was
formulated to describe the idea that separate, often contrasting colors would
combine in the eye of the viewer to achieve the desired chromatic effect. The
separation of color through individual strokes of pigment came to be known as
Divisionism while the application of precise dots of paint came to be called
Pointillism. According to Neo-Impressionist theory, the application of
paint in this fashion set up vibrations of colored light that produced an
optical purity not achieved by the conventional mixing of pigments.
The rigid theoretical tenets of optical painting upheld by
Neo-Impressionism's standard-bearer, George Seurat, gave way to a more
fluid technique following his untimely death in 1891. In the luminous
watercolors of Henri-Edmond Cross, for example, small, precise brush
marks were replaced by long, mosaic-like strokes and clear, contrasting
hues by a vibrant, saturated palette. While some artists like Henri Matisse
merely flirted with Neo-Impressionism and others like Camille Pissarro
renounced it entirely, Seurat's legacy extended well into the 20th century in
the works of Cross and Signac. Poised between Impressionism in the 19th
century and Fauvism and Cubism in the 20th, Neo-Impressionism brought
with it a new awareness of the formal aspects of paintings and a theoretical
language by which to paint.
Neo-Impressionsim: The Circle of Paul Signac is organized by Dita
Amory, Associate Curator, Robert Lehman Collection. Exhibition design is by
Michael Langley, Exhibition Designer, with graphics by Sophia Geronimus,
Graphic Designer; and lighting by Zack Zanolli, Lighting Designer.
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