"I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom. I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients." Gustave Courbet

02 December 2010

Happy Birthday, Seurat.

George Seurat, Le Jardinier, 1882.

Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science.

- Georges Seurat

By nature as much a scientist as an artist, Seurat could not accept Monet's instinctive application of visual perception in the use of light. Using as a guide The Law of Contrasts and Similarities, a text on color by the chemist Chevreul, Seurat applied his earlier studies of black and white drawings to the use of color. He developed a specific color wheel based on the fragmentation of light and limited himself to the colors of the spectrum, working out careful compositions that fused design and color.

Read the rest here.

Seurat's complete works can be found here.

Look closely.

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