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 :. | A sondagseftermiddag pa on Allow to Magnifico Jatte | Detail from La Parade showing pointillism | The circus | Bathing at Asnieres (mk35) | The Lighthouse at Honfleur |
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Edward Simmons
October 27, 1852 ?C November 17, 1931,was an American Impressionist painter, remembered for his mural work. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, the son of a Unitarian minister. He graduated from Harvard College in 1874, and was a pupil of Lefebvre and Boulanger in Paris, where he took a gold medal. In 1894, Simmons was awarded the first commission of the Municipal Art Society, a series of murals ?? ??Justice,?? ??The Fates?? and ??The Rights of Man?? for the interior of the Criminal Courthouse at 100 Centre Street in Manhattan. This court is the criminal branch of New York Supreme Court where many New Yorkers serve on Jury Duty. Later Simmons decorated the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York, the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., and the Capitol at Saint Paul, Minnesota. In the year 1914 he travelled with Childe Hassam to view the Arizona desert paintings of the rising California artist, Xavier Martinez at his Piedmont studio. Simmons was a member of the Ten American Painters, who, as a group, seceded from the Society of American Artists. He was also considered a contributor to the style known as the American Renaissance, a movement after the American Civil War that stressed the relationship of architecture, painting, sculpture and interior design.
Joachim Beuckelaer
1535-1574 Flemish Joachim Beuckelaer Galleries b Antwerp, c. 1534; dAntwerp, c. 1574). Flemish painter. He came from an Antwerp family of obscure painters and seems to have spent his entire life there. He trained in the studio of Pieter Aertsen, who in 1542 had married Beuckelaers aunt; he became an independent master and also married in 1560. His earliest known work dates from that year, and his development can be followed closely to 1570. The example of Beuckelaers master remained decisive throughout his career. Not only did he take over Aertsens new repertory of secular subjects, he also completely adopted his stylistic idiom and manner of painting, so that it can be difficult to distinguish the two hands. Beuckelaer was, however, by no means a slavish imitator, and as regards execution he fully bears comparison with Aertsen.
Louis Ferdinand Elle
1612-1689