More to See: Areas of Research

The Man of the (2.5) Hour(s): Georges Seurat

Georges Pierre Seurat (12/2/1859-3/29/1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist who invented the Chromoluminarist (also called Divisionist) art style. He was the youngest child of Ernestine Faivre from Paris and the wealthy Antoine Chrysostome Seurat from Champagne. He lived in various locations around Paris, but generally, as an adult, stayed in the Pigalle district. Seurat never married, but he had a long term secret mistress, Madeleine Knobloch, who lived with him and bore both their children. He died in the home of his parents at 31 from an unidentified illness.

Georges Seurat created several major paintings in his life and created hundreds of preparatory studies, but his most famous by far is A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. His favorite medium, however, was conte crayon. The only time his work was ever shown at the Paris Salon was in 1883, and it was a conte drawing of his friend Edmond Aman-Jean. After that, Seurat's more cutting edge work was shown in France and beyond, but primarily at the Salon des Indépendants, which he founded with several other post-Impressionists.

Chromoluminarism: Fixed Laws for Color...

Chromoluminarism (also called Divisionism) is a style developed in France during the 1880s, which falls under the larger label of post-Impressionism (also called neo-Impressionism). It was spearheaded by Georges Pierre Seurat and most commonly associated with his A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The Divisionists, inspired by scientific discoveries of Michel Eugène Chevreul, Ogden Rood, and Charles Blanc, were trying to use additive color theory to create maximum luminosity in their paintings. The idea was that by placing two contrasting colors next to one another caused the eye to mix them on their own (rather than mixing two colors manually). Seurat was not technically additively mixing but creating simultaneous contrast, which is what gives his works a shimmering effect.

...Like Music: Sondheim's Mathematical-Musical Influences

The late, great Stephen Sondheim (3/22/1930-11/26/2021) attributed much of his success as a musical theatre lyricist to his teenaged tutelage from Oscar Hammerstein II, an iconic musical theatre lyricist in his own right. Sondheim famously said of their relationship, "If he'd been a geologist, I would have been a geologist." As part of his training, Hammerstein tasked him with writing four musicals, and before Sondheim finished them all at the age of 22, he had begun taking music lessons from composer Milton Babbit. Babbit was a music theorist largely known for his work in serialism, which is an especially mathematical composition technique utilizing only series of pitches, notes, or rhythms. Although not incompatible with tonal music, it is often associated with atonal music. This incredibly unique blend of not only musical influences but teachers is arguably what gives Sondheim his iconic sound, which can appear strange to the ear for those listening to other musical theatre composer-lyricists. Serialism's extra-mathematical approach to music is not unlike Chromoluminarism's extra-mathematical approach to visual art. Therefore Sunday in the Park with George puts Sondheim's mastery of his craft on display in full color. Words and music align and collide to create an aural landscape matching the imagined inner mind of the visionary Georges Seurat.