Divisionism: A Seurat Legacy

                                                          'Primary Portrait',C.T. Rasmussen; 2010

Seurat’s theories intrigued many of his contemporaries, as other artists seeking a reaction against Impressionism joined the Neo-Impressionist movement. Paul Signac, in particular, became one of the main proponents of divisionist theory, especially after Seurat’s death in 1891. In fact, Signac’s book, D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme, published in 1899, coined the term divisionism and became widely recognized as the manifesto of Neo-Impressionism.^[3]
In addition to Signac, other French artists, largely through associations in the Société des Artistes Indépendants, adopted some divisionist techniques, including Camille and Lucien Pissarro, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Charles Angrand, Maximilien Luce, Henri-Edmond Cross and Hippolyte Petitjean.^[5] Additionally, through Paul Signac’s advocacy of divisionism, an influence can be seen in some of the works of Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger, Robert Delaunay and Pablo Picasso^[5] .<sup>[6]
Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divisionism


For me Seurat has had much more influence than I could ever account for, in this case alnoe I will refer specifically to  its influence on the above Gouache I finished in 2010.  First, I stuck with primary colors as in original Divisionism's definition, but rather than allowing myself to use green, it was simply replaced with the use of a black marker to create a spontaneous drawing w/o a 'net' (in true neo-impressionist spirit).  Later to be filled in with color controlled by a strict policy of not being able to vary color tone nor intensity.</sup>

Seurat and the Gang; How it all Inspired a Mosaic.

                                       The Bathers at Asnières, 1884, George Seurat; in the National Gallery, London

Most importantly to a man that spent a very short life, creating but a few masterpieces of this magnitude, an artist who has more unfinished works than finished ones(for very good reasons); I ask:
 "how is this piece significant to you?"

For me the answer is: "it's the perfect intersection between perspective and composition, perfection of light and color theory the Impressionists were collectively working towards."  Seurat was is widely known for inventing divisionism & popular technique called, Pointillism; he may have contributed some of the fewest pieces out of this famous group of French artists, but they hold their equal weight in my book.

His painting featured here being his biggest achievements, in size and stature, I as well as the the majority of the art world seem to believe this to be true.  Much like Seurat, I believe that I have found my 1st 'Bathers', I title it 'Blue Vase' (synthetic mosaic seen below); a style greatly influenced by Vincent Van Gogh's impasto style, Pollock's pouring methods and largely Seurat's color theory, and later Kandinsky's theory on color composition. 

The former 3 living short lives and the later Kandinsky starting very late in life, contributed a great amount to the art world in such short amount of time.  It only makes me wonder how much I can with the possibility of even more time...if given the fortune to live a longer life like Monet, Picasso, or O'Keeffe, who all lived to be almost 100 years old

 Blue Vase  C.T. Rasmuss, synthetic mosaic (2011).