Order and Science

Neo-Impressionism: Seurat, Signac and the Science of Color

Color theory turned into a working method, from Paris to Brussels.

From the mid-1880s a group of painters around Seurat and Signac tried to turn color into a method. They set pure color down in separate touches, guided by the science of their day. Within a few years the approach had followers across France and in Belgium.

• Seurat's large figure paintings, from the riverbank to the circus ring
• Signac, the movement's champion, and the writer who named it
• Followers in France and Belgium: Cross, Luce and Van Rysselberghe

Neo-Impressionism

The critic Félix Fénéon's 1886 name for the color method of Seurat, Signac and their circle.

Works in this part

• Bathers at Asnières
• Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)
• Le Chahut
• The Channel of Gravelines, Petit Fort Philippe
• The Circus
• Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890
• Evening Calm, Concarneau, Opus 220 (Allegro Maestoso)
• The Evening Air (L'Air du soir)
• The River Sambre in Charleroi
• Maria Sèthe at the Harmonium

Image: Wikimedia Commons · PD-Art