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 :. | La Parade | Ein Abend in Grandcamp | Impression Figure | Detail of Bather | Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte |
Related Artists:
Monamy, Peter
English Painter, 1681-1749 English painter. It seems likely that his family origins and name were French. The Painter-Stainers' Company records that he was apprenticed as a house painter to William Clarke from 1696, but by 1710 he had become a marine artist, filling the gap in the market left by the death of Willem van de Velde the younger in 1707. Most of his subsequent career was devoted to careful imitations of van de Velde's style (and, in some cases, of particular pictures), by which, according to Vertue, 'he distinguished himself and came into reputation'. He maintained his links with the Painter-Stainers, of which he had been made a freeman in 1703
john D.rockefeller
new york metropolian museum, cloisters collection
RUYSCH, Rachel
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1664-1750 Dutch painter. She specialized in still-lifes of flowers and fruits and still-lifes in outdoor settings, the large majority signed, with dated examples from 1681 to 1747 providing a sound chronology. She is widely regarded as the most gifted woman in the history of the subject and among the greatest exponents of either sex. Ruysch came from a distinguished and wealthy background. Her father, Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731), was an eminent professor of anatomy and botany, who published his fine collection of natural curiosities. He was also a gifted amateur painter. Her mother was the daughter of the architect Pieter Post. At the age of 15 Ruysch became a pupil of Willem van Aelst until his death in 1683. In 1693 she married the portrait painter Juriaen Pool (1665-1745), a happy union that produced ten children. In 1709 the couple moved to The Hague, where both artists joined the Guild of St Luke. From 1708 to 1713 they were both court painters to the Elector Palatine, John William, at D?sseldorf, for whom they continued to work until his death in 1716. In that year they returned to Amsterdam, where Ruysch continued working until at least the age of 83.