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 :. | Bathing at Asniers | The Eiffel Tower | The Person is Sitting or Lying and black horse | Port en Bessin, Sunday | Impression Figure |
Related Artists:
Charles Muller
[French Academic Painter, 1815-1892
Theodore Gudin
French Painter, 1802-1880 was a French painter of the 19th century. He especially painted navy scenes, and was a pupil of Girodet-Trioson. Gudin was one of the first Peintres de la Marine, at the court of Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III.
Antonio Maria Esquivel
Nacio en Sevilla en 1806. Comenzo los estudios de pintura en la Academia de Bellas Artes de Sevilla. Alli se familiarizo con la tecnica pictorica y el detallismo al estilo de Murillo. En 1831, se traslado a Madrid, donde concurso en la Academia de San Fernando, siendo nombrado academico de merito. En contacto con el ambiente intectual madrileno de esos anos, participo activamente en la fundacion del Liceo Artistico y Literario en 1837, donde daria clases de Anatomia, asignatura que impartiria tambien mas tarde en la Academia de San Fernando. En 1839, otra vez en Sevilla, sufrio una enfermedad que le dejo practicamente ciego; el artista, sumido en una profunda depresion, se intento suicidar arrojandose al rio Guadalquivir. Enterados sus companeros y amigos poetas y artistas y movilizados por el Liceo para ayudarle, sufragaron entre todos un caro tratamiento realizado por un prestigioso oftalmologo frances. Gracias a esto, en 1840 sano y recupero la vision. El artista, agradecido, pinto a sus amigos, poetas y pintores del Romanticismo, en un cuadro que se ha hecho justamente celebre. Como reconocimientos oficiales, recibo la placa del Sitio de Cadiz y la Cruz de Comendador de la Orden de Isabel la Catolica. En 1843 es nombrado Pintor de Camara y en 1847 academico de San Fernando, siendo ademas miembro fundador de la Sociedad Protectora de Bellas Artes. Como teorico de la pintura, redacto un Tratado de Anatomia Pictorica, cuyo original se guarda en el Museo del Prado. Fallecio en Madrid en 1857. Sus hijos Carlos Maria (1830-1867) y Vicente tambien fueron pintores.