“Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science"  Seurat

"Go to the country--the muse is in the woods"  Corot

View of Fort Samson 1885

View of Fort Samson 1885

Georges Seurat

palette 500

The Impressionist artists were interested in trying to capture the changing effects of light on the landscape by using a more exact analysis of tone and color. Their ideas were inspired by Eugene Chevreul's scientific research into color theory.

The Impressionist artists abandoned the old idea that the shadow of an object was made up from the color of the object with some brown or black added. Instead, they enlivened their canvases with a new idea that the shadow of any color could be mixed from pure hues and broken up with its opposite color. For example, the shadows on a yellow surface could have some strokes of lilac painted into it to increase its vitality.