Seurat, 1859-1891

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This extraordinary volume presents a Seurat far more fascinating and complex than the standard image of the coolly scientific dot painter of picnickers and circuses. Cataloguing a large retrospective now at New York's Metropolitan Museum on the centenary of the artist's death, the book gives us a Seurat of many moods and styles. His drawings include powerful naturalistic pictures of laborers, as well as shadowy, mystical portraits and symbolic landscapes suggestive of Odilon Redon. His meditative seascapes suggest a spiritual cleansing, and the solitary figures on dusky streets prefigure the modern age of urban atomization. Seurat mocked commercialized big-city entertainment with his puppetlike figures. His rarely seen female nudes bring impetuosity and freshness to a classic theme. The reproductions are superb. The text, written by Herbert ( Seurat's Drawings ) in collaboration with scholars from the Met and the Musee d'Orsay, Paris, intertwines the life and work of the enormously prolific artist who died at the age of 31. (Dec.)

Library Journal

Never accorded a proper tribute from France, Seurat was the subject of a major retrospective held recently in Paris, then New York, commemorating the centennial of the Neo-Impressionist's death at 31. In collaboration with distinguished staff from the Musee d'Orsay and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seurat scholar Herbert has compiled this extensivie exhibition catalog. Such masterpieces as ``La Grande Jatte'' are conspicuously absent from the show but given ample coverage here. The grandeur and extent of Seurat's oeuvre are evident in the conte crayon drawings of lonely figures, the serene seascape paintings, and the serio-comical scenes of cafe and circus life. Each of the more than 230 works analyzed includes a history of ownership and exhibitions. The substantial text examines such issues as the science of light and color, pointillism, biographical material, and influences. This work should have permanent value and is strongly recommended.-- Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago