A New Impressionism? -- Anarchism and the search for solid ground -- Art social: a blow of the pick? -- Utopianism and the retreat from the Grande Jatte -- Terrible and Beau: The modern world -- The turn to activist art: "To Crowds Still in Bondage" -- The moment of Neo-Impressionism -- Appendix: Impressionists and Revolutionaries, by "an Impressionist Comrade"
Examines the theoretical bases and the social fabric that spawned French neo-impressionism, best represented by Seurat, Signac, Pissarro, Angrand, and Luce. Shows how they rejected the spontaneity of the impressionists to embrace scientific theories promulgated by anarchists Peter Kropotkin and Jean Grave, and how the movement broke up when their concern for social justice was supplanted by demands for more militant, didactic art. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [253]-270) and index.
A New Impressionism? -- Anarchism and the search for solid ground -- Art social: a blow of the pick? -- Utopianism and the retreat from the Grande Jatte -- Terrible and Beau: The modern world -- The turn to activist art: "To Crowds Still in Bondage" -- The moment of Neo-Impressionism -- Appendix: Impressionists and Revolutionaries, by "an Impressionist Comrade"
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Library Journal Review
Hutton (art history, Trinity Univ.) has authored a "meaty" analysis of the theoretical and social bases of neo-Impressionism. An outgrowth of his dissertation (A Blow of the Pick: Science, Anarchism, and the Neo-Impressionist Movement, Northwestern Univ., 1987), it is clearly a work intended as scholarly in the best sense of the word. Not everyone, however, will agree with Hutton's thesis that the neo-Impressionist movement would never have happened had any one of the competing late 19th-century French social, political, and economic factors he addresses been significantly different. Hutton develops his thesis with analyses of the conflicting elements that marked a turbulent era in French history. Whether or not he reaches the "solid ground" he seeks remains open to debate. A fine bibliography includes both primary and secondary sources; the illustrations, which were not available for review, are incidental. Recommended for research-level art history collections (index not seen).-P. Steven Thomas, Sangamon State Univ., Springfield, Ill. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
CHOICE Review
This committed book is devoted to the humanistic radicalism of French anarchocommunist thought of the 19th century. The utopian political theories of Reclus, Grave, and Kropotkin are discussed at length and related to the artistic circle of the so-called "Neos": Neo-Impressionist painters Seurat, Signac, the Pissarros, Angrand, Luce, Hayet, Cross, van Rysselberghe, Petitjean, Dubois-Pillet, and others who practiced divisionist techniques for a time. Basing the volume on his 1987 PhD dissertation, Hutton writes with fervor, ambitiously attempting the critical impact and overarching generalization of today's foremost Marxist art historian T.J. Clark. Hutton's strength lies in recounting events, historical and literary background, and "global artistipolitical theory." His volume documents the real vitality of contemporary anarchist thought to the Neo-Impressionists, but is not as adept analyzing Neo-Impressionist paintings themselves, especially works with apparently nonpolitical subjects. Two studies that complement Hutton are "Scientific Aesthetics and the Aestheticized Earth" by Robyn Sue Roslak (UCLA, 1987) and "The Neo-Impressionist Landscape," by Peter J. Flagg (Princeton 1988)--both doctoral dissertations. For collections specializing in the modern period. Graduate; faculty. M. Hamel-Schwulst; Towson State University
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BookSeries: Modernist studies.Publisher: Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, c1994Description: xvi, 276 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.ISBN: 0807118230 .Subject(s): Neo-impressionism (Art) -- France | Art, French