Last year, I went to visit the special Helene Kröller-Müller exhibition at the National Gallery.
Helene Kröller-Müller was an industrialist’s daughter and one of the wealthiest women in the Netherlands. An art enthusiast, she built a significant art collection that eventually formed the basis of the Kröller-Müller Museum. She amassed a remarkable collection, including 90 paintings by Vincent van Gogh and an unrivalled collection of Neo-Impressionist works.
This was a Neo-Impressionist exhibition which I found fascinating because it delved into the philosophy of this epoch of art history.
While the Impressionists (like Monet and Renoir) worked on intuition, and capturing the fleeting “impression” of a moment; the Pointillists (Neo-Impressionists) viewed this as too messy, romantic, and subjective.
I think pointillism, at its deepest core, is a form of “constructivism”, in the sense that it seeks to construct a “new” truth through a destruction followed by a “rational” reconstruction. Just as a Marxist might argue that Communism is the inevitable scientific conclusion of history, Signac’s art wanted to do away with romanticism etc. to “modern” utopian visual reality.
The Pointillists (particularly Paul Signac & Camille Pissarro) were deeply committed anarcho-communists. While Georges Seurat (the founder) was more reserved about his personal politics, his art (and especially Pissarro) depicted beautiful agrarian & industrial scenes, ports, and peasants, rendering the working classes with a touching dignity.
Ironically, for us, today, this sort of art is considered rather conservative and passé!
Score: 4/5.
For this blog post, I will select the best paintings for each section of the exhibition.
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Gallery 1: “The New Art”
These are some paintings of the early days of Neo-Impressionism. It is based on the application of dots in line with colour theory.
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Collioure, the Belltower, Opus 164 by Paul Signac (1887)
Magnificent.
Great structure. I love the way the sunlight glints off the wave surfaces. The distinct dots/strokes mimic the sunlight hitting Mediterranean ripples wonderfully.
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Sunday at Port-en-Bessin by Georges Seurat (1888)
Not much of an admirer.
The problem with this painting by Seurat is the dark diagonal railing in the foreground. Signac’s curved beach (in Collioure, the Belltower) swept you smoothly toward the tower. Here, it creates a psychological distance that feels cold.
Even the French tricolors feel stiff, as if frozen in ice.
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Portrieux, The Lighthouse by Paul Signac (1888)
Wow.
Filled with heat and humanity.
This Signac painting uses a very similar compositional device to the Seurat I disliked above (a stone barrier at the fore), but here it works beautifully.
Signac paints the water and sky in cool, receding blues. He then paints the sails in blazing, hot orange-reds. Because the background is so light & cool, those sails and the lighthouse physically “pop” in the eye. They vibrate with intensity.
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Late Afternoon in our Meadow by Camille Pissarro (1887)
One of my favourites of Pissarro. This is one of the National Gallery’s own masterpieces.
I absolutely love the quiet romanticism, despite being overtly “unromantic” art.
I love the solitary figure in the field, with her basket.
This is a stylistic twin of the exquisite “Spring Sunshine in the Meadow at Eragny” at the D’Orsay.
A more dynamic version of impressionism? In this Pissarro painting, I feel he has truly replicated the way natural light glints and vibrates of surfaces. The painting feels like it is breathing, capturing the feeling of a warm afternoon sun, more visually impactful than any photograph could.
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Gallery 2: Radical Politics
The exhibition then turns the Neo-Impressionist depictions of the lives and landscapes of people perceived to be of the exploited classes.
Artists, like Luce, Signac and Jan Toorop, made works with an overt political message. While others, like Van Gogh and Anna Boch, were a little bit more sutble.
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Factories on the Thames by Georges Lemmen (1892)
Wow. Effective painting on the alienation of industry. Anomie. Ghosts of ships in the distance.
That enormous dark oppressive wall dominates the view. Those chimneys are belching smoke into the sky.
My first painting of Georges Lemmen.
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Boulogne-sur-Mer by Theo van Rysselberghe (1899)
Belgian artist Theo van Ryss. is one of my favourites of the Neos.
This is a painting of hard, unromantic reality. Not a leisure scene: a working fleet. The water is choppy and grey. The sky is overcast.
THis Van Ryss. painting is quite different to his earlier pointillisms. Here, a more subdued earthy palette to give a “realistic” heavier colour scheme. Perhaps a more honest colour, than a rainbow effect - expressionist?
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The Eve of the Strike by Jan Toorop (1889)
Wow.
Pointillism with a nervous anxiety? They seem to be radiating some orange electricity/energy?
This painting (with the setting sun) depicts the day before a strike. Head in hands, his wife looking forlorn with, perhaps, a little baby in arms.
Anxiety & a heavy dread about what the strike might bring.
These are probably the best Jan Toorop paintings I’ve seen.
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After the Strike by Jan Toorop (1890)
The tragic consequences.
Bent forward, unnaturally so; slumbering, and carrying a little baby, this is about the physical and emotional toll of the strike’s effects.
Horrible and moving.
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The Sower by Vincent van Gogh (1888)
Uplifting and a deeply spiritual painting.
Unlike Toorop, in Van Gogh’s The Sower, the worker (like the sun) radiates an inner force and strength that dominates the canvas. I love the stride, the liveliness and the all-encompassing beams of sunshine.
In fact, I think Van Gogh depicts The Sower as working in harmony with the sun. The aureate sun has the same vibrant colour as the field of wheat. The man has the same colour as the seeds and untouched fields. One helps the other in a beautiful cycle of creation.
Van Gogh depicts man as a source of strength and growth, rather than just toil.
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The Iron Foundry by Maximilien Luce (1899)
I think this artist was a communist.
The danger and exertion of industry: people aren’t just working; they are wrestling with the molten metal.
Their limbs are fully extended, muscles tense, leaning back to counter the weight of the ladle/smelter.
The blue-gray clouds of some toxic gases?
Terrific.
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Morning, Interior by Maximilien Luce (1890)
I found this strikingly beautiful. Love it.
It is visually stunning, and the subject so intimate and tender. I love the warmth of the sunshine pouring in.
To paint a regular man (Luce’s own friend) in his modest bedroom putting on his socks was a statement. Luce is saying: “This moment matters too”.
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Gallery 3: Portraits
The Neo-Impressionist distillation of form run up against the traditional expectation that of a portrait and its likeness.
The exhibition has a few interesting portraits, I focused on the development of Rysselberghe and Toorop.
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Maria Sèthe at the Harmonium by Theo van Rysselberghe (1891)
Wow.
This is “Maria Sèthe at the Harmonium” (wiki) and depicts a close friend of the artist, sitting in a deeply concentrated and reflective pose.
The pointillism here is incredible. The velvet dress sparkles with a wonderful intensity. Her deep purple dress even more pronounced against the bright yellow-orange wood of the organ.
Van Ryss loves to “paint” the frame too.
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The Lady with the Blue Hat by Theo van Rysselberghe (1900)
This portrait is only 10 years after Maria Sethe.
It captures a much lighter (see dress), airier moment; the simple pleasure of a sunny afternoon.
Excellent contrast in the exhibition.
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Portrait of Mrs Marie Jeannette de Lange by Jan Toorop (1900)
Stunning.
The woman, Marie Jeannette de Lange, was the chairwoman of the Association for the Improvement of Women’s Clothing.
She advocated for “Reform Dress” - i.e. without restrictive corsets that allowed women to move and breathe.
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The Connoisseur of Prints by Jan Toorop (1898-1900)
The subject of the portrait is Dr. Aegidius Timmermann in intense and quiet focus.
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Part 2 to follow
