Suppose we admit that an approximate colour can be recorded for that part of the landscape’s green which is in the light, that is, the green whose complement is to be placed on the outskirts of the shadow. Let us say that this green is technically a yellow-green, since it is in the sun. Now the complement of yellow-green is not, as the Neo-Impressionists hold, violet, but red-violet or purple. But, were red-violet used in the shadow, its effect would be false, because, in order for yellow-green to call up its pure complementary, the light itself must be an intense yellow-green—so intense in fact that the local colour of the object (whatever it is) is entirely absorbed and unable to influence the light. Then, and only then, would the shadow be pure purple, for the local colour, being nullified, would not interfere with the optical sensation of complementaries. But on an object which appears yellow-green in the light, the yellow of which is the sun’s rays and the green the local colour, the shadow also is modified by the local colour in the same proportion that the light is modified, only its modification is in an opposite direction; that is, the yellow of the sun’s rays, in raising green to yellow-green, lowers the green of the shadow to blue-green. Therefore the shadow is not the complementary of the light colour. But in the darkest part of the shadow, which is the boundary dividing it from the light, there is a sensation of red derived from purple, purple being the complementary of the yellow-green. Thus in a blue object, though the pure complementary of the lighted part would be orange, the shadow in sunlight is merely dark blue with that fugitive sensation of red through it. In the shadow on such an object Signac calls for pure orange, claiming that a vermilion, a lake or a purple is out of place. His colour science in the abstract may be unimpeachable, but his physics is faulty. The sensation caused by the complementary of the lighted part is that of a reddish tint; and so long as the painter introduces a colour into the shadow so as to give this impression of red, he is at least empirically, though not scientifically, correct. There is only a sensation of red, not a definite spot where red can be placed; and for the canvas to be truthful emotionally there must be only that sensation of red in the painted shadow. And the only way to produce it without making a spot of orange, which is a light colour and which in its pure state has no properties in common with shadow, is to use a colour which is intimately connected with shadow and which contains the elements of both light and shadow. Thus in the cold bluish-orange shadow of a blue object there must be placed a cold lake or a purple which partakes of both the light and shadow and therefore does not offend the eye by its isolation. In the bluish or blue-green shadow of a yellow-green object, a purple is too aggressive and blatant, while a blue-violet or an attenuated violet is doubly harmonious.
Indeed there is another reason why complementaries should not be used, but merely their approximations set down. Perfect complementaries neutralise each other and, when optically mixed or applied in such small particles in a pure state that at a short distance the eye cannot distinguish their limitations, produce a metallic and acid grey which is to colour harmony what noise is to music. When C and G♭ are struck together the sensitive ear revolts in the same way a sensitive eye revolts at complementaries in colour. But while in music a minor, or diminished, fifth is displeasing, by increasing or reducing the interval a semitone, by making it, for instance, C—F or C—G, a pleasing effect can be obtained. In colour also this principle holds good. The complementary combination of red and green is harsh, but by placing red with one of the spectrum tones on either side of green a pleasurable harmony is at once established. The Impressionists through instinct generally made use of colours which primitively or softly harmonised, again proving the ascendency of taste over system, for if taste is sensitive it will be verified by science. Science, however, cannot create taste. When we consider the Neo-Impressionists’ antagonistic and neutralising complementaries, it is difficult to understand their criticism of Impressionism. The Impressionists, they said, “put a little of everything everywhere, and in the resulting polychromatic tumult there were antagonistic elements: in neutralising each other, they deadened the ensemble of the picture.” Now in the entire range of colour from violet to yellow there is hardly a possible dual combination which cannot be made harmonious by the addition of one or two other colours. In this process of complication lie the infinite harmonic possibilities of sound as well as of colour. There are no two notes in music which, though when struck together are jarring, cannot be drawn into a perfect chord by the introduction of certain other notes. And any two lines, no matter how inapposite, can be æsthetically related by other lines properly placed. Even were the Neo-Impressionists, in their criticism, referring to the placing of blue in light and of yellow in shadow, they would still be open to refutation, for their predecessors, by placing on their canvases the colours they had felt in contemplating their models, were once more emotionally right although not exactly right from the standpoint of abstract science.
With all the brilliancy of their pure pigments the Neo-Impressionists have yet to produce a canvas as brilliant or as harmonious as those of the Impressionists. The reason is not far to seek. In an Impressionist picture there is a certain amount of neutrality caused by mixing the colour of light with that of blue shadow; and this mixture heightens the scintillation of the ensemble. The Divisionists, on the other hand, went so far as to abolish neutrality altogether. In raising all values to a point of saturation, they diminished the brilliancy of the picture as a whole. It is to be doubted seriously if even Signac is still of the belief that the Pointillists’ squares of colour blend optically. Theoretically they should, but actually the impression we receive is not one of vibrant light. We see only an extended series of spots which are all about the same size—a size which was varied but little as the dimensions of the canvas varied, as was the case with the Impressionists. But these latter artists mixed their spots not only on the palette but on the canvas as well, and blent them into neighbouring spots. The result was a richly decorated surface whose minute parts do not foist themselves upon our sight. But in Signac, Cross, Van Rysselberghe, Dubois-Pillet, Luce, Petitjean, Van de Velde or Augrand, who developed these means to their ultimate limits, these spots are so displeasing and obtrusive that it is mentally impossible to lose sight of them in the contemplation of the pictures. All of these artists produce flat work, with the possible exception of Van Rysselberghe who has merely superposed this technique on an obvious and insensitive academism. He is to the Neo-Impressionists what Henri Martin is to Monet.
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There has been too much credit taken by the Neo-Impressionists for the discovery of this stippling technique. As a matter of fact it is not wholly original with them. Turner, Constable, Delacroix, Jongkind, Fantin-Latour, Cézanne and the Impressionists were all interested in breaking nature up into parts in order to arrive at a dynamic representation of the whole. The process with them was commendable, but the Chromo-luminarists carried it to such an extreme that they saw nature only in order to break it into spots. They repudiate vehemently the appellation of Pointillists, and the name that Émile Bernard gave them—Pointists—has remained beneath their notice. They point out that one may be a Pointillist without being a Divisionist, for Pointillism is the using of colour in spots so as to avoid its flat application, while “division” is the application of separated spots of pure pigment for the purpose of bringing about an optical admixture. The idea of optical admixture was born when some one placed several planes of different colours on a disc and, by revolving it rapidly, caused them to blend perfectly. Immediately the Neo-Impressionists jumped to the conclusion that distance would accomplish the same result with any-sized spots. This assumption was their initial error. There is a very definite limit to the size of colour spots which at a distance will blend optically, and the artists of this school, with the one exception of Seurat, made their spots too large. Delacroix never juxtaposed large strips of complementaries in one plane, but applied hachures of almost the same tint. The effect would have been little different had he painted flatly, except for the richer matière this method produced. The Impressionists mixed their colours both on the palette and on the canvas, except when they wished to reproduce a certain texture that called for small lights and shadows placed side by side. And Cézanne modulated his colour spots so that there were no jumps or hiatuses between them.
The Neo-Impressionistic methods have no such subtleties. In applying their colour these painters keep each spot separated from its neighbour by a tiny bit of white canvas which is intended to give added light to each part. The spots are unmixed and are applied straight from the palette in preponderating proportions to obtain certain general colour impressions. They use only the seven colours of the prismatic spectrum, and in thus restricting their palette they have limited their range of greys. Since nature itself is a series of high-pitched greys in which only occasionally does a pure colour appear, they were inadequately equipped for reproducing it. If, by raising all tints to their purity, they hoped to obtain the maximum of colouration and therefore the maximum of luminosity, they overlooked the fact that to produce any light whatever there must be negation or shadow. They failed to achieve light because they equalised the brilliancy of all colours. Even to produce colour there must be black or grey. Their equilibrium of elements led to the cold grey aspect of their work and to the acid and inharmonious effect of their colour.
The desire of the Neo-Impressionists to improve upon the Impressionistic vision was a sincere one, and in their striving for dramatic means for heightening the already intense emotional power of their forerunners’ work, they showed themselves to be animated by an ambition for change and improvement without which no vital innovation can be made. Their desire was commendable, but their science was inadequate. Their modern spirit was best shown in their search for the significance of line in its harmonic relation to colour and tone. The impetus to this search emanated from Seurat who dictated to his biographer, Jules Christophe: “Art is harmony; harmony is the analogy of contraries (contrasts), the analogy of likes (gradated), of tone, of tint, of line;—tone, that is to say, the light and dark; tint, that is to say, red and its complement green, orange and blue, yellow and violet; line, that is to say, horizontal directions.... The means of expression is the optical admixture of tones and tints and of their reactions (shadows) following fixed laws.” Delacroix had already turned his eyes in the direction of the harmony of lines and colours. It will be recalled that he wrote in his Journal: “If to a composition, interesting in its choice of subject, you add a disposition of lines, which augments the impression, a chiaroscuro which seizes the imagination, and a colour which is adapted to the characters, it is then a harmony, and its combinations are so adapted that they produce a unique song.... It is good not to let each brush stroke melt into the others; they will appear uniform at a certain distance by the sympathetic law which associates them.”
The Neo-Impressionists, taking their cue from Seurat’s observations, state that the first consideration of a painter before a blank canvas should be to determine what curves and what arabesques are going to divide the surface, and what colours and tones cover it. Even in this aim they went further than the Impressionists who neither ordered nor synthesised their works formally. The Neo-Impressionists say they do not commence a canvas until they have determined its complete arrangement. Then, guided by tradition and science, they harmonise the composition with their conception. That is to say, they adapt the lines, colours and tones to an order which æsthetically expresses the character of emotion their model calls up in them. They hold that horizontal lines give calm; ascending lines, joy; descending lines, sorrow; and that the intermediary lines represent the infinite variations of emotions that lie outside these first three types. But they offer no explanation of the analogies between these intermediate lines and the kinds of emotion they are supposed to call up. They go on to explain that hot tints and light tonalities should be applied to ascending lines, cold tints and sombre tonalities to descending lines, and an equal amount of light and dark to the horizontal lines. “Thus,” they add, “the painter becomes a creator and a poet.”