Georges Seurat Quotes

Georges-Pierre Seurat was a French post-Impressionist painter and draftsman. He is noted for his innovative use of drawing media and for devising the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism. Seurat's artistic personality was compounded of qualities which are usually supposed to be opposed and incompatible: on the one hand, his extreme and delicate sensibility; on the other, a passion for logical abstraction and an almost mathematical precision of mind. His large-scale work, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte , altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-impressionism, and is one of the icons of late 19th-century painting.

✵ 2. December 1859 – 29. March 1891
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Georges Seurat: 20   quotes 0   likes

Famous Georges Seurat Quotes

“Rood was in my possession the day after the appearance of Philippe Gille's book review, published by 'Le Figaro', 1881 (change of palette). I abandon earth colors from [18]82 to 1884. On Pissarro's advice I stop using emerald green”

1885
Rood etait en ma possession le lendemain du jour oil paru la revue biblio graphique de Philippe Gille, collection du Figaro 1881 [changement de palette]. J'abandonne les terres en 82 a 1884. Sur le conseil de Pissarro je lache le verr emeraud (1885
Quotes, 1881 - 1890, Letter to Félix Fénéon', June 1890

“I painted like that because I wanted to get through to something new - a kind of painting that was my own.”

quote from Seurat, John Russell; Thames & Hudson, London 1965 ISBN 0-500-20032-7
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Georges Seurat Quotes

“They [the visitors in his studio, praising his work] see poetry in what I have done. No, I apply my method and that is all there is to it.”

as quoted in Post-Impressionism, From Van Gogh to Gauguin, John Rewald, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1956, p. 86
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“The art of painting is the Art of hollowing out a canvas.”

from an essay by Roger Fry, in 'The Dial', Camden, New Jersey, September 1926
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“On Pissarro's advice I'm abandoning the emerald green..”

Seurat's note in 1885; as quoted in the exhibition-text 'Georges Seurat, 1859 – 1891' in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1992, ed. Robert Herbert, published: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York
Camille Pissarro wrote his son Lucien c. 1885 and asked him to warn Seurat and Paul Signac, because mixing the cadmium yellow with other pigments would change into dark color, later
Quotes, 1881 - 1890

“.. the flag is green with a red spot in the center; above, the blue of the sky, the orange-tinted white of the walls, and the orange-grey of the clouds.”

short notation, 1881: from 'Notes inedites de Seurat sur Delacroix', in 'Bulletin de la Vie Artistique', April 1922; as quoted by John Rewald, in Georges Seurat', a monograph https://ia800607.us.archive.org/23/items/georges00rewa/georges00rewa.pdf; Wittenborn and Compagny, New York, 1943. p. 6 - note 9
Seurat studied carefully the paintings of Eugene Delacroix, and wrote in 1881 about Delacroix's painting 'The Fanatics of Tangier' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix_-_The_Fanatics_of_Tangier_-_WGA06195.jpg this notation
Quotes, 1881 - 1890

“Allow me to point out an inaccuracy in your biography of Signac, or rather, in order to set aside all doubt, allow me to specify..”

Félix Fénéon wrote that 'the new 'optical painting' seduced [c. 1885], - several young painters', but he named mainly Signac
Quotes, 1881 - 1890, Letter to Félix Fénéon', June 1890

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