The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (441 page)

(1656–1732).
Sicilian sculptor in
stucco
. He was the greatest of all virtuosi in his medium and with the exception of
Antonello da Messina
, the most distinguished artist to come from Sicily. Unlike Antonello, he spent almost all his life on the island (although he may have trained in Rome) and his work is mainly found in the churches of his native Palermo. Serpotta's icing-sugar-white figures—elegant, delicate, charming, and joyous in spirit—are amongst the finest expressions of the
Rococo
in Italian art. He is particularly well known for his playful
putti
, but his finest single figure is generally acknowledged to be the enchantingly coquettish
Fortitude
(1714–17) in the Oratoria del Rosario di San Domenico, Palermo. His brother
Giuseppe
(1653–1719) and his son
Procopio
(1679–1755) were also stuccoists.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1863–1927).
French painter and art theorist. In 1888 he met
Gauguin
and Émile
Bernard
at
Pont-Aven
, was converted to their
Symbolist
views and founded the
Nabis
with
Denis
,
Bonnard
,
Vuillard
, and others. He became the principal theorist of the group, and after visiting the school of religious painting at the Benedictine monastery at Beuron in Germany in 1897 and 1903 his ideas were permeated with concepts of religious symbolism. His theories were set out in his influential book
ABC de la Peinture
(1921), which deals with colour relationships and systems of proportion. Sérusier's paintings, which largely feature Brittany peasants and after about 1900 religious subjects, are generally considered of less interest than his writings.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

settecento
.

See
QUATTROCENTO
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1901– ).
Belgian painter, graphic artist, and writer, a founder of
Cercle et Carré
and
Abstraction-Création
. His artistic work is in a geometrical abstract style, but he is better known for his writings. They include dictionaries of abstract painting (1957) and modern sculpture (1959), both of which have been translated into English.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1859–91).
French painter, the founder and greatest exponent of
Neo-Impressionism
. Seurat was the son of comfortably-off parents and his career took an unusual course; he never had to worry about earning a living and pursued his artistic researches with single-minded dedication. In 1878 he entered the École des
Beaux-Arts
in Paris, but his studies were interrupted by military service in 1879. He returned to Paris in 1880 and for the next 2 years devoted himself to drawing (he was one of the subtlest and most original draughtsmen of the 19th cent., typically working with very broad, velvety areas of tone, using a
conté crayon
on textured paper). In spite of this mastery of black and white, as a painter he turned for inspiration to artists in the colourist tradition—notably
Delacroix
and the
Impressionists
. In addition to studying the work of such painters, Seurat read aesthetic and scientific treatises, and he made it his aim to establish a rational system for achieving the kind of vibrant colour effects that the Impressionists in particular had arrived at instinctively. The method he evolved was to place small touches of unmixed colour side by side on the canvas, producing an effect of greater vibrancy and luminosity by this ‘optical mixture’ than if the colours had been physically mixed together on the palette. In his first major painting,
Bathers, Asnières
(NG, London, 1883–4, reworked, 1887), Seurat was still experimenting with his technique, but his next large work,
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
(Art Institute of Chicago, 1884–6), is a completely mature statement of his ideals.
La Grande Jatte
was shown at the final Impressionist exhibition in 1886 and led to the recognition of Seurat as a leader of the avant-garde. The critic Félix Fénéon coined the term
pointillism
in reference to this painting to describe the technique of using a myriad of tiny dots of colour, but Seurat preferred the term
divisionism
. From 1887 Seurat began to turn his attention to the significance of line in painting, believing that certain directions of lines could express specific emotions; horizontal lines represented calmness, for example, while upward- and downward-sloping lines represented happiness and sadness respectively. He embodied his beliefs in paintings such as
Le Chahut
(Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, 1890), in which the raised legs of the dancers performing ‘Le Chahut’ (a sort of can-can) express ‘happiness’. Seurat died very suddenly at the age of 31, apparently from meningitis, although his friend
Signac
said that he ‘killed himself by overwork’. He was so dedicated to his work and kept himself to himself to such an extent that until his death few people knew he had a mistress and son. His mistress, Madeleine Knobloch, is represented in
Woman Powdering Herself
(Courtauld Inst., London, 1890). Seurat's work was highly influential, but his disciples rarely approached his skill, and even less his level of inspiration, in applying his theories; their paintings often look mechanical and lack his gently satirical humour. In power of composition Seurat stands above not only his followers, but also virtually all other painters of his period. He planned his pictures with extraordinary care, and they have nothing of the sense of the passing moment associated with Impressionism. Rather, they have a highly formalized quality and a conscious grandeur that has caused Seurat to be compared with such revered masters as
Piero della
Francesca and
Poussin
.