Neo-Impressionism

Neo-Impressionism

Movement in French painting of the late 19th century, in reaction against the realism of Impressionism. The Neo-Impressionists, led by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, applied paint to canvas in dots of contrasting pigments, scientifically chosen so that adjacent dots would blend from a distance into a single colour. The technique is known as pointillism. Whereas the Impressionists captured the fugitive effects of colour and light, the Neo-Impressionists crystallized them into immobile monumentality.

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Neo-Impressionism 

an art trend that originated around 1885 in France, where its principal representatives were G. Seurat and P. Signac. Neo-impressionism spread to Belgium (T. van Rysselberghe), Italy (G. Segantini), and other countries. In developing the principles of late impressionism, which was marked by an intensified interest in optic phenomena, the neo-impressionists sought to apply the latest discoveries in optics to art. They methodically broke down complex color tones into pure colors. Seeking to overcome the haphazard and fragmentary nature of impressionist compositions, the neo-impressionists resorted to decorative, two-dimensional compositional solutions. The cerebral method of neo-impressionism often led to the predominance of cold intellectualism and to a dry abstractness of images.

REFERENCES

Signac, P. Ot Ezh. Delakrua k neoimpressionizmu, Moscow, 1913.
Rewald, J. Postimpressionism. Leningrad-Moscow, 1962. (Translated from English.)