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Georges Seurat: The Art of Vision

by Michelle Foa
Yale Univ. 2015. 248p. illus. notes. index. ISBN 9780300208351. $65; ebk. ISBN 9780300212822. FINE ARTS
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Foa (art history, Tulane Univ.) explores the concept of vision and its meaning to French artist Georges Seurat (1859–91) through the context of his times, his work, and the science and color theory that enhanced his paintings. In separate chapters, the author discusses the themes that interested Seurat and informed his paintings, from his seascapes to what the author deems as one of the first paintings of the Eiffel Tower, with the Grand Jatte and circus images in between. All were produced during the artist's short life, with pointillistic style that reveals his vision of individual dabs of paint that can be seen as separated up-close and from a distance illusionistically as a continuity.
VERDICT Foa skillfully covers new ground in Seurat studies. This work will appeal to art scholars and students as well as the general reader interested in 19th-century French painting and its influence in the new advancements on ways of seeing pictures and their meaning in the real world. Suitable for most art book collections.
Reviewed by Ellen Bates, New York , Oct 15, 2015
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