Neo-Impressionism is a term coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat's most renowned masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, marked the beginning of this movement when it first made its appearance at an exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants (Salon des Indépendants) in Paris. Around this time, the peak of France's modern era emerged and many painters were in search of new methods. Followers of Neo-Impressionism, in particular, were drawn to modern urban scenes as well as landscapes and seashores. Science-based interpretation of lines and colors influenced Neo-Impressionists' characterization of their own contemporary art. The Neo-Impressionists were able to create a movement very quickly in the 19th century, partially due to its strong connection to anarchism, which set a pace for later artistic manifestations. Neo-impressionists also used more precise and geometric shapes to simplify and reveal the relationships between forms. Seurat's disciple Paul Signac later used what he felt to be a more poetic spontaneous use of divisionist technique. While the mixture of the former created a white or gray color, that of the latter produced a dark, murky color. As painters, Neo-Impressionists had to deal with colored pigments,

Origins of the term

There are a number of alternatives to the term "Neo-Impressionism" and each has its own nuance:

Chromoluminarism was a term preferred by Georges Seurat. It emphasized the studies of color and light which were central to his artistic style. This term is rarely used today.

Divisionism, which is more commonly used, describes an early mode of Neo-Impressionist painting. It refers to the method of applying individual strokes of complementary and contrasting colors. The allure of the scientific and new techniques captivated the young artists of this movement. The movement then spread abroad when Seurat and Pissarro were invited to Les Vingt, an avant-garde society in Brussels. This style became the dominant form in Belgium by 1889 and even artists like Van Gogh tried their hand at this style.

Seurat's mission as an artist was to celebrate the power of pure color, the expressive power of line, color and value, the reform of Impressionism and of the Beaux-Arts tradition. Signac also viewed the Mediterranean as the place for anarchist avant-garde art. The Mediterranean was rarely depicted by avant-garde painters partially because of the association between the south of France and academic classicism as well as cultural and political conservatism. and antithetical to the commonly accepted notions of creative processes set for the 19th century.

According to modern sources, much of the critique of the Neo-Impressionists at the time is just out of focus. In December 1894, the independent socialist daily La Petite République featured a front-page column by critic Adolphe Tabarant. He remarked on the new Neo-Impressionist cooperative gallery in the Rue Laffitte, focusing on Luce and Signac, also known as the young masters: "The art has, perhaps, a tendency toward an ill-tempered synthesis, toward a scientific observation that is too dry. But how it vibrates, and how it rings with truth! What an expenditure of coloring, what a profusion of agitated notions, in which one senses the noble and sincere passions of those young men who, after lamented Seurat, strive to capture all the secrets of light from the sun!" By requiring the viewer to combine the colors optically instead of physically mixing pigments, Divisionists believed they were achieving the maximum luminosity that was scientifically possible. They also believed that it philosophically represented harmony as unanticipated colors work together equally to form a single image. Georges Seurat founded the style around 1884 as chromo-luminarism, drawing from his understanding of the scientific theories of Michel Eugène Chevreul, Ogden Rood and Charles Blanc, among others. Divisionism developed alongside Pointillism, which is defined specifically by the use of dots of paint but does not primarily focus on the separation of colors.

Theoretical foundations and development

Divisionism developed in nineteenth-century painting as artists discovered scientific theories of vision which encouraged a departure from the tenets of Impressionism. Most notably as science surrounding the vibration of light and the effect on retinas developed, color palettes changed. Neo-Impressionists began to place complementary colors side-by-side to create dimension and shadows instead of working in a range of hues. This dividing up of the canvas into individual sections of complementary and contrasting colors led to the name "divisionism", a term coined by Signac.

Impressionism was a movement that originated in France in the 1870s, characterized by the use of quick, short, broken brushstrokes to accurately capture the momentary effects of light and atmosphere in a scene, usually outdoors. The Impressionists sought to create an "impression" of a momentary scene as perceived by the viewer, rather than a mechanically precise replication of a scene.  Divisionism, also known as Pointillism, developed from Impressionism in the 1880s. The Divisionists used a technique of placing small, distinct dots of color next to one another on the canvas, rather than mixing the colors on the palette. This created a more vibrant and dynamic effect, but also required a higher level of skill and precision.  Neo-Impressionism emerged in the late 19th century, used more precise and geometric shapes to build compositions, and was strongly influenced by the scientific study of color theory and optical color effects, to create a more harmonious and luminous painting.

Georges Seurat

thumb|210px|[[Georges Seurat, Le Cirque, 1891, oil on canvas, 185 x 152 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris]]

Divisionism, along with the Neo-Impressionism movement as a whole, found its beginnings in Georges Seurat's masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Seurat was classically trained in the École des Beaux-Arts, and, as such, his initial works reflected the Barbizon style. Studying under Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Seurat intensely pursued interests in line and color, color theory, and optical effects, all of which formed the basis of Divisionism. In 1883, Seurat and some of his colleagues began exploring ways to express as much light as possible on the canvas. By 1884, with the exhibition of his first major work, Bathing at Asnières, as well as croquetons of the island of La Grande Jatte, Seurat's style began taking form with an awareness of Impressionism, but it was not until he finished La Grande Jatte in 1886 that he established his theory of chromo-luminarism. Although this painting was originally rejected by the official salon it attracted the Salon des Indépendants where Paul Signac was engaged.

Following the controversial success of La Grande Jatte, Camille Pissarro and Paul Signac converted to Neo-Impressionism and, along with Pissarro's son Lucien, formed the basis of the Neo-Impressionist and Divisionist movements. Later promoted by Symbolist artists and critics, Divisionism became the avant-garde style of post-Impressionism.

The support Seurat initially received slowly dissipated as he became increasingly hostile towards other artists, believing that they were corrupting his style and technique. By the end of his life few works of his received the attention they used to. Circus, an unfinished work exhibited after his death, was barely noticed by critics or the general public.

In Divisionist color theory, artists interpreted the scientific literature through making light operate in one of the following contexts:

Following the revolutions of 1848, a strong undercurrent of radical anarchism ran throughout the artistic community of France. The combination of social art and artistic freedom and the departure from traditional color painting techniques attracted radicals to the movement of Neo-Impressionism. However, these radicals were often criticized for depicting a peaceful and thoughtful approach to social revolution, combining science and moral harmony.

In 1907 Metzinger and Delaunay were singled out by the critic Louis Vauxcelles as Divisionists who used large, mosaic-like 'cubes' to construct small but highly symbolic compositions. Both artists had developed a new sub-style that had great significance shortly thereafter within the context of their Cubist works. Piet Mondrian and Nico van Rijn, in the Netherlands, developed a similar mosaic-like Divisionist technique circa 1909. The Futurists later (1909–1916) would adapt the style, in part influenced by Gino Severini's Parisian experience (from 1907), into their dynamic paintings and sculpture.

In Germany, it was Paul Baum and Carl Schmitz-Pleis who, in retrospect, provided the decisive impetus.

Divisionism in Italy

thumb|250px|left|[[Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, The Fourth Estate, 1899–1901.]]

The influence of Seurat and Signac on some Italian painters became evident in the First Triennale in 1891 in Milan. Spearheaded by Grubicy de Dragon, and codified later by Gaetano Previati in his Principi scientifici del divisionismo of 1906, a number of painters mainly in Northern Italy experimented to various degrees with these techniques. These Italian artists merged Neo-impressionism with Symbolism creating allegorical paintings using a divisionist method. For example, Pellizza da Volpedo applied the technique to social (and political) subjects; in this he was joined by Angelo Morbelli and Emilio Longoni. Among Pellizza's Divisionist works were Speranze deluse (1894) and Il sole nascente (1904). It was, however, in the subject of landscapes that Divisionism found strong advocates, including Segantini, Previati, Morbelli, and Carlo Fornara. Further adherents in painting genre subjects were Plinio Nomellini, Rubaldo Merello, Giuseppe Cominetti, Angelo Barabino, Camillo Innocenti, Enrico Lionne, and Arturo Noci. Divisionism was also an important influence in the work of Futurists Gino Severini (Souvenirs de Voyage, 1911); Giacomo Balla (Arc Lamp, 1909); Carlo Carrà (Leaving the scene, 1910); and Umberto Boccioni (The City Rises, 1910).

Criticism and controversy

Divisionism quickly received both negative and positive attention from art critics, who generally either embraced or condemned the incorporation of scientific theories in the Neo-Impressionist techniques. For example, Joris-Karl Huysmans spoke negatively of Seurat's paintings, saying "Strip his figures of the colored fleas that cover them, underneath there is nothing, no thought, no soul, nothing". Leaders of Impressionism, such as Monet and Renoir, refused to exhibit with Seurat, and even Camille Pissarro, who initially supported Divisionism, later spoke negatively of the technique. For example, one of these misconceptions can be seen in the general belief that the Divisionist method of painting allowed for greater luminosity than previous techniques. Additive luminosity is only applicable in the case of colored light, not juxtaposed pigments; in reality, the luminosity of two pigments next to each other is just the average of their individual luminosities.