Georges Seurat Quotes

..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.

On Pissarro's advice I'm abandoning the emerald green..

I have told him nothing [an art-journalist in Paris who wrote in 1887: 'Seurat sees his paternity of the theory Neo-Impressionism contested by misinformed critics and unscrupulous comrades'], but what I have always thought: the more of us [the Neo-Impressionists] there are, the less originality we will have, and the day when everyone this technique, it will no longer have any value and people will look for something new as is already happening.. .It is my right to think this and to say it, since I paint in this way [ Neo-Impressionistic ], only to find a new approach which is my own.

Signac told me of his death this way: 'He Vincent van Gogh gave himself a bullet in the ribs; it passed through his body and lodged in his groin. He walked for two kilometers, losing all his blood, and went on to die in his inn'.

(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)

Here are the titles of my large canvases:
'Bathing Place' (Asnieres) 2 meters / 3 meters, exh. Independants (group) May 15, 1884. New York studies for 'A Sunday on the Grande Jatte'. Independants (Society) December 1884
'A Sunday on the Grande Jatte'. 1884, 3 meters / 2 meters. Independants August 1886..
..studies at 'the Grande Jatte' and at Honfleur at Grandchamp, Independants in 1887..

Signac, definitively won over and who had just modified the paintings 'The Milliner', and 'Appreteuse et garnisseuse Modes' [exhibited in May 1886], Rue de Caire, p. 174J, following my technique at the same time as I was finishing the 'Jatte'.. .You'll agree that there's a nuance here and that if I was unknown in 85 [ Félix Fénéon did not mention Seurat in his article as leader / initiator of Neo-Impressionism|Neo-Impressionism I nonetheless existed, I and my vision that you have described in an impersonal fashion so superbly, aside from one or two insignificant details.

I knew van Gogh less intimately. I spoke to him for the first time in 1887 in a popular eatery near 'La Fourche', Avenue de Clichy, [Paris], (closed). A huge windowed room was decorated with his canvases. He exhibited at the 'Independants', [Paris] in 1888, 1889, 1890..

The art of painting is the Art of hollowing out a canvas.

The means of expression is the optical mixture of tones, of tints (of local color and the illuminating color: sun, oil lamp, gas, etc.), that is, of the lights and of their reactions (shadows) following the laws of contrast, of gradation, of irradiation.

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

Gaiety of tone is the luminous dominant, of tint, the warm dominant, of line, lines above the horizontal
Calmness of tone is the equality of dark and light; of tint, of warm and cool, and the horizontal for line.
Sadness of tone is the dark dominant; of tint, the cool dominant, and of line, downward directions.

Opposites are:
for tone, a more luminous/lighter one for a darker one.
for tint, the complementaries, that is, a certain red opposed to its complementary, etc.
Red — Green
Orange — Blue
Yellow — Violet
for line, those making a right angle.

Knowing Corot's ideas on tone [copy of a private letter, October 28, 1875].. and Couture's precepts on the subtlety of tints (at the time of his exhibition), having been struck by the intuition of Monet and Pissarro.. .Rood having been brought to my attention in an article by w:Philippe Gille, Figaro 1881, 3.

In conclusion I am going to give you the aesthetic and technical note that concludes Mr. Christophe's piece and which originated with me; I am modifying it a little, not having been well understood by the printer.