Fondation Pierre Arnaud, Lens Dal 22/12/2013 Al 22/04/2014
While the Impressionists tried to convey reality as our ‘eye’ sees it with rapid brushstrokes, Divisionist artists sought to render light by using a whole science of painting whose characteristic feature was the optical combination of colours instead of chemically mixing pigments on the palette. From the 1880s, artists all over Europe were inventing a new pictorial language based on the laws of optics. Using a variety of strokes, ranging from dots to daubs, filaments to commas, they juxtaposed pure colours and left it up to the eye of the viewer to re-compose the picture with all its subtleties. The challenge facing the organizers of this ground-breaking exhibition has been to tell the story of the Divisionism’s adventure as it spread across Europe: for the first time, over a hundred French, Italian, Swiss, Dutch, German and Belgian works are exhibited side-by-side. Paintings by major artists such as Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Camille Pissarro, Gaetano Previati, Angelo Morbelli, Carlo Fornara, Giovanni Segantini, Théo Van Rysselberghe, Giovanni Giacometti and Cuno Amiet are interacting and entering in a dialogue, which highlights the movement’s multiple facets… From mastery of colour to effusion of colour.