The French Neo-Impressionist is considered to be one of the icons of 19th-century art and the most important exponent of Pointillism, a style of painting he developed. With about sixty paintings, oil studies, and drawings from public and private collections the exhibition offers a representative survey and, at the same time, focuses on a crucial aspect of Seurat's oeuvre: the figure in space. The artist's work as both a painter and a draftsman gives evidence of his great interest in experimenting with the subject. His paintings proved to have a far-reaching impact on the development of Modernism.
Curators: Christoph Becker (Kunsthaus Zürich) with Julia Burckhardt Bild (co-curator of the exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich), and Katharina Dohm (Curator Schirn).
The French Neo-Impressionist Georges Seurat (1859–1891) is considered to be one of the icons
of nineteenth-century art and the most important exponent of Pointillism, a style of painting he
developed. With about sixty paintings, oil studies, and drawings from public and private collections
in London, Paris, Zurich, New York, San Francisco, a.o., the exhibition in the Schirn Kunsthalle
offers a representative survey and, at the same time, focuses on a crucial aspect of Seurat’s
oeuvre: the figure in space. No other pictorial subject tells more about Seurat’s art. Both his
paintings and drawings testify to his great interest in the subject, which he dedicated himself to
throughout his entire creative career. The artist initially looked to groups such as the École de
Barbizon, to epochs like the Renaissance, or to fellow artists such as Puvis de Chavannes, but
realized his subjects in a new painting technique and innovative compositions. Examining the
Impressionists’ pictorial solutions and the most recent scientific insights in the fields of physiology
and chromatics, Georges Seurat developed the method that went down in art history as Pointillism
and became an important source of inspiration for later artists.
Together with Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), and Paul Gauguin
(1848–1903), Georges Seurat, who was born in Paris in 1859, numbers among the most
important pioneers of modern art. He produced a significant oeuvre before his early death from
diphtheria at the age of 31. He had already begun to draw and dedicate himself to art-theoretical
writings in his schooldays. After taking drawing lessons for two years, he entered the École des
Beaux Arts in 1878 and began to study with Henri Lehmann, a pupil of Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Ingres. Initially, he continued his training in the classical vein, devoting himself mainly to the works
of Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Holbein, Poussin, and Ingres. After only one year – probably not
least under the impression of the fourth Impressionist exhibition – Seurat left the Paris Academy
and increasingly abandoned its traditions.
In the following years, Seurat extended his knowledge in the theory of colors and the effects of
colors on the human eye beyond any academic constraints. He studied the works of the art
theorist Charles Blanc, the writer and color theorist Charles Henry, and the American physicist
Ogden N. Rood. He was also decisively influenced by the French chemist Michel-Eugène
Chevreul’s theory of pigments regarding the perception of colors and additive color combination.
Chevreul primarily explored the laws of simultaneous contrast and how colors change with
increasing distance. Around 1883, Seurat, inspired by these scientific findings, developed his
method of painting based on the simultaneous contrast of adjacent colors, which was to become
famous under the name of Pointillism. Paints were dabbed onto the canvas with a brush in
meticulously applied and densely packed dots. The overall impression of a surface’s or painting’s
coloring only comes about in the eye of the beholder as an optical mixture when perceived from a
certain distance.
"Un Dimanche à la Grande Jatte" (1884–1886), a key work of Neo-Impressionism and Seurat’s
most remarkable composition, in which he uncompromisingly relied on the Pointillist technique for
the first time, is presented in the Schirn in the form of several small-size preliminary studies.
Widely discussed in the context of the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition in 1886, this work
made Seurat the leader of the new avant-garde around Paul Signac, Camille Pissarro, and
Maximilian Luce. With their new technique and understanding of what a picture is, Seurat and the
Neo-Impressionists overcame the Impressionist maxim according to which reality was transferred
to the canvas as a spontaneous and individual sensation. The Neo-Impressionists no longer
regarded pictures as records of snapshots, but as well-planned compositions with rules of their
own. The Impressionists’ nervous, short brushstrokes suggesting movement and revealing a
definitely individual character were reduced to dots of an almost grid-like uniformity and regularity.
This new technique also went hand in hand with a systematization or elimination of the artist’s
individual hand.
The treatment of the figure in space, which is also the central subject of the exhibition in the
Schirn, is an issue running all the way through Seurat’s oeuvre. The artist’s work as both a painter
and a draftsman gives evidence of his great interest in experimenting with the subject. His studies
at the Academy and early drawings like "Garçon des dos" (Boy from Behind, 1882/83) already
show the artist’s intense devotion to the human figure, which for him was inextricably linked with
the space surrounding it. In numerous studies for his paintings, Seurat explored his figures from
different perspectives, varied them, and captured them in different close-ups. Thus, he gradually
arrived at the final composition of his paintings, in which he brought together the figures of his
preliminary studies.
Yet even when depicted together with others in groups, Seurat’s figures strike us as isolated, still,
and withdrawn. Their linearity and geometrization endows them with an almost abstract character.
In the case of Seurat, this immobilization or frozen representation, i.e., the decision to render
states instead of goings-on, evinces archaic traits and documents his study of the masters relying
on linearly closed forms like Raphael, Poussin, or Ingres, to whom he had dedicated himself in his
youth. His figural subjects are manifold: Seurat captured the urban bustle of Paris and life in the
suburbs and made the working population the theme of his paintings and drawings. Small-size
wooden panels show people sailing, anglers, or Sunday outing scenes. In his last major works he
focused on the activities of circus artistes, clowns, and musicians: "Le Cirque" (The Circus,
1890/91), one of Seurat’s major works presented in the Schirn, shows the virtuoso performance of
a female horseback acrobat in the manège. However, Seurat’s figures do not always have to be
human; in his landscapes, views of cities, and maritime works, their function is, as it were, fulfilled
by trees, hills, or masts.
Seurat’s oeuvre of drawings is of equal importance as his achievements as a painter. For almost
all his drawings, the artist used a soft Conté crayon, a deep-black charcoal stick. The strokes
cover the quite grainy paper as a dense web of rhythmic hatching and crosshatching, making the
motif emerge or disappear as something floating and indefinite. Pronounced contrasts between
light and dark shroud and accentuate the figures and lend them an unreal presence. Seurat’s
drawings are both independent works and preparatory studies. Especially his later sheets – as
well as his numerous oil sketches, which, contrary to the final paintings, are often characterized by
quick Impressionist strokes – helped the artist find and perfect his compositions.
Seurat’s Pointillism proved to have a far-reaching impact on the development of Modernism.
Artists like the Italian Futurists enthusiastically picked up Seurat’s thread and transferred his
scientifically driven dynamics into the twentieth century. Bauhaus representatives raved about his
unusual compositions and the geometrization of both his figures and his landscapes. Artists such
as Agnes Martin found a basis for their drawing in Seurat’s graphic work.
The exhibition was prepared by the Kunsthaus Zürich in cooperation with the Schirn Kunsthalle
Frankfurt.
Catalog: Georges Seurat. Figure in Space. Edited by Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft/Kunsthaus
Zürich. With a foreword by Max Hollein and texts by Christoph Becker, Gottfried Boehm, Julia
Burckhardt Bild, Michelle Foa, and Wilhelm Genazino. English and German editions, 152 pages
with 113 illustrations each, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7757-2439-5
(English), ISBN 978-3-7757-2438-8 (German), 29.80 € each (Schirn) / 39.80 € (trade).
Audiobook: Georges Seurat, text by Linda Schädler. English and German editions, hardcover,
with audio CD, 44 pages with 30 color illustrations each, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 2009,
ISBN 978-3-7757-2535-4 (English), ISBN 978-3-7757-2442-5 (German), 16.80 € each.
The exhibition "Georges Seurat. Figure in Space" in the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is sponsored
by CALYON Germany–Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank.
Image: Georges Seurat, Le bec du hoc, Grandcamp, 1885
Press office: Dorothea Apovnik (head Press and PR),
Tanja Wentzlaff-Eggebert (press officer), Philipp Dieterich, phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-118, fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240, e-mail: presse@schirn.de
Press preview: Wednesday, February 3, 2010, 11:00 a.m.
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Römerberg, D-60311
Opening Hours: Tue, Fri–Sun 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., Wed
and Thur 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Admission: 8 €, reduced 6 €, family ticket 16 €; combination ticket also covering the exhibition "Uwe Lausen. Ende schön alles schön
(All’s Fine That Ends Fine)" 13 €, reduced 9 €; combination ticket also covering the exhibitions "Uwe Lausen. Ende schön alles schön (All’s Fine That Ends Fine)" and "Eberhard Havekost. Retina" 14 €, reduced 10 €. Free admission for children under 8 years of age.