Neo-Impressionism and the Dream of Realities: Painting, Poetry, Music

by Paul Smith (Contributor), Cornelia Homburg, Laura D. Corey (Contributor)

This stunning catalogue explores the creative exchange between Neo-Impressionist painters and Symbolist writers and composers in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Symbolism, with its emphasis on subjectivity, dream worlds, and spirituality, has often been considered at odds with Neo-Impressionism’s approach to portraying color and light. This book repositions the relationship between these movements and looks at how Neo-Impressionist artists such as Maximilien Luce, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and Henry van de Velde created evocative landscape and figural scenes by depicting emptiness, contemplative moods, Arcadia, and other themes. Beautifully illustrated with 130 color images, this book reveals the vibrancy and depth of the Neo-Impressionist movement in Paris and Brussels in the late 19th century.

Genres: Art

191 pages, Hardcover

First published November 11, 2014

About the author

Paul Smith is Professor of History of Art at the University of Warwick. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a visiting scholar and a scholar at the Getty Research Institute.

Paul Smith studied for his PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art under the supervision of Robert Ratcliffe, the eminent but obscure Cézanne scholar. Before that, he took his undergraduate degree at University College London, where he was taught aesthetics by the philosopher, Richard Wollheim. Both have had a lasting influence on his research.

Paul Smith works mostly on later 19th century French painting, and the theories that help explain it. He is also interested in the literature of the period, particularly recherché novels about art.

Reviews

[Andrea Engle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating tale of the cross-fertilization among French and Belgian painters, writers and composers ... the Neo-Impressionists, a group of artists gathered around Seurat, Signac and the elder Pissarro, developed pointillism during the last two decades of the 19th century ... viewing nature with vivid colors and an aura of tranquillity ... sumptuous color plates ...