Georges Seurat and Piero della Francesca: At the Classical Roots of Neo-Impressionism
- Art d'Histoire
- May 28
- 3 min read
The aesthetic relationship between Georges Seurat, a recognised precursor of modern painting, and the "primitive" master of the Italian Renaissance, Piero della Francesca, may be surprising, but it is well-established.
Seurat admired the painter of Arezzo while he was painting his Bathers at Asnières and A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, creating a bridge between the mathematical rigour of the Italian Quattrocento and his own optical experiments.
The École des Beaux-Arts: A Crucible of Paradoxical Influences
Trained by Lehmann, who was himself steeped in the strict teaching of Ingres, Seurat was initially immersed in the academicism of the École des Beaux-Arts—a recognised influence that worried some of his contemporaries.
Camille Pissarro perceived this rigidity as early as 1888, while he was adopting the divisionist technique, while Julius Meier-Graefe warned against this academic saturation, which he judged dangerous for the future of painting. He was certainly not thinking of Piero.
For Piero is not an academic reference, belonging instead to those Italian primitives whom the French school had partially buried. Nevertheless, under the impetus of influential figures including Charles Blanc, the art of the Italian primitives experienced a resurgence of interest, working in favour of a return to visibility for Piero within the school itself, without having intended it so.
A look back at a pathetic attempt.
Wishing to fight against modern trends, Blanc commissioned hundreds of copies of European masterpieces, including those of Piero's friezes in Arezzo, and had his Museum of Copies installed. Nine months later, for reasons of power struggles and changes at the head of French administrations, this museum was dismantled; the copies were reassigned, and those of Piero were installed at the École des Beaux-Arts.
Henri Laborde, the institution's secretary-general, expressed reservations about this painting, which he judged too logical and too mathematical to pertain to pure imagination. But no matter, a man was there to open Seurat's eyes to Piero, should his friezes not suffice.
The Method of an Obsessive Researcher
It is known that Seurat conducted himself as a researcher. Gustave Coquiot reports that the student tirelessly paced the exhibition halls and libraries, cross-referencing original works with reproductions, filling his sketchbooks with drawings and copies enhanced with touches of watercolour.
The library of the École des Beaux-Arts played a central role for him, as did a certain Eugène Müntz, the curator of the premises.
Indeed, Müntz was an unconditional admirer of Piero della Francesca. Between 1879 and 1880, he enriched the collections with photographs reproducing the Italian master's work, including scenes such as the Death of Constantine and the Death of Adam. He also published works on Piero's treatises on perspective as early as 1884.
An interesting anecdote: Albert Boime points out that Seurat’s studio neighbour was Charles Loyeux, the painter responsible for the famous copies of the Arezzo frescoes. Perhaps they spoke of them.
From Classical Structure to the "Little Dot"
Müntz observed in Piero a balance between spontaneous instinct and the science of the geometer—an atypical conjunction that suited Seurat's personality just as well. The in-depth study of Renaissance works provided Seurat with an intellectual and formal framework documented by Albert Boime: the kinship is not accidental.
A Bathers or A Sunday stand out as monumental and updated visions of this primitive art, where the solemnity of the Quattrocento masters is reinvented through the prism of 19th-century optical science.
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