People From Paris

"Great as was my wonderment [visiting the 8th Impressionist Exhibition, May/June 1886, at 1, rue Laffitte in Paris] it was tenfold increased on discovering that only six of these pictures were painted by the new man, Seurat, whose name was unknown to me; the other five were painted by my old friend Pissarro.. .The pictures were hung low, so I went down on my knees and examined the dotting in the pictures signed Seurat, and the dotting in those that were signed, Pissarro. After a strict examination I was able to detect some differences, and I began to recognize the well-known touch even through this most wild and most wonderful transformation. Yes, owing to a long and intimate acquaintance with Pissarro and his work, I could distinguish between him and Seurat, but to the ordinary visitor their pictures were identical."

"The frame [is no longer as in the beginning version] is in a harmony opposed to those of the tones, tints, and lines of the [motif of the] picture."

"Opposites are: for tone, a more luminous/lighter one for a darker one. for tint, the complementaries, that is, a certain red opposed to its complementary, etc. Red — Green Orange — Blue Yellow — Violet for line, those making a right angle."

"Aesthetic: Art is Harmony. Harmony is the analogy of opposites, the analogy of similarities of tone, of tint, of line taking account of a dominant and under the influence of the lighting, in combinations that are gay calm or sad."

"Gaiety of tone is the luminous dominant, of tint, the warm dominant, of line, lines above the horizontal Calmness of tone is the equality of dark and light; of tint, of warm and cool, and the horizontal for line. Sadness of tone is the dark dominant; of tint, the cool dominant, and of line, downward directions."

"Signac told me of his death this way: 'He Vincent van Gogh gave himself a bullet in the ribs; it passed through his body and lodged in his groin. He walked for two kilometers, losing all his blood, and went on to die in his inn'."

"Here are the titles of my large canvases: 'Bathing Place' (Asnieres) 2 meters / 3 meters, exh. Independants (group) May 15, 1884. New York studies for 'A Sunday on the Grande Jatte'. Independants (Society) December 1884 'A Sunday on the Grande Jatte'. 1884, 3 meters / 2 meters. Independants August 1886.. ..studies at 'the Grande Jatte' and at Honfleur at Grandchamp, Independants in 1887.."

"In conclusion I am going to give you the aesthetic and technical note that concludes Mr. Christophe's piece and which originated with me; I am modifying it a little, not having been well understood by the printer."

"The means of expression is the optical mixture of tones, of tints (of local color and the illuminating color: sun, oil lamp, gas, etc.), that is, of the lights and of their reactions (shadows) following the laws of contrast, of gradation, of irradiation."

"A canicular sky, at four o'clock, summer, boats flowing by to the side, a group of chance Sunday visitors enjoying the fresh air among the trees; and these forty-odd persons [in the painting 'La Grande Jatte' are fixed in a hieratic and simplified composition, they are rigorously drawn, of some we see the backs, some we see full-face, some in profile, some are seated at right angles, some are stretched out horizontally, some are standing up straight. The atmosphere is transparent and singularly vibrant; the surface seems to fluctuate. Perhaps this sensation, which is also experienced in connection with other paintings in the same room, can be explained by the theory of Dove: the retina, expecting distinct rays of light to act on it, perceives in rapid alternation both the disassociated colored elements and their resultant color."

"I insist on establishing the following dates indicating my prior paternity, [and the discussions that I held] 1884, 'Grande Jatte' study, exhibition of the Independants 1884-1885, 'Grande Jatte' composition 1885, studies at the 'Grande Jatte' and at Grandcamp; I took up again the 'Grande Jatte' composition October 1886. 4 October [18]85 I make Pissarro's acquaintance at Durand-Ruel's. 1886, January or February, a small canvas by Pissarro, divided and pure color, at Clozet's, the dealer on the Rue de Chateaudun."

"Knowing Corot's ideas on tone [copy of a private letter, October 28, 1875].. and Couture's precepts on the subtlety of tints (at the time of his exhibition), having been struck by the intuition of Monet and Pissarro.. .Rood having been brought to my attention in an article by w:Philippe Gille, Figaro 1881, 3."

"Signac, definitively won over and who had just modified the paintings 'The Milliner', [1885] and 'Appreteuse et garnisseuse Modes' [exhibited in May 1886], Rue de Caire, p. 174J, following my technique at the same time as I was finishing the 'Jatte'.. .You'll agree that there's a nuance here and that if I was unknown in [18]85 [ Félix Fénéon did not mention Seurat in his article as leader / initiator of Neo-Impressionism|Neo-Impressionism I nonetheless existed, I and my vision that you have described in an impersonal fashion so superbly, aside from one or two insignificant details."

"Allow me to point out an inaccuracy in your biography of Signac, or rather, in order to set aside all doubt, allow me to specify.."

"The purity of the spectral element being the keystone of my.. ..searching for an optical formula on this basis ever, since I held a brush 1876 - 1884.. ..having read Charles Blanc in school and therefore knowing Chevreul's laws and Eugene Delacroix's precepts, having read the studies by the same Charles Blanc on the same painter [= Delacroix]"

"Rood was in my possession the day after the appearance of Philippe Gille's book review, published by 'Le Figaro', 1881 (change of palette). I abandon earth colors from [18]82 to 1884. On Pissarro's advice I stop using emerald green (1885)"

"I have told him nothing [an art-journalist in Paris who wrote in 1887: 'Seurat sees his paternity of the theory Neo-Impressionism contested by misinformed critics and unscrupulous comrades'], but what I have always thought: the more of us [the Neo-Impressionists] there are, the less originality we will have, and the day when everyone this technique, it will no longer have any value and people will look for something new as is already happening.. .It is my right to think this and to say it, since I paint in this way [ Neo-Impressionistic ], only to find a new approach which is my own."

"..the flag is green with a red spot in the center; above, the blue of the sky, the orange-tinted white of the walls, and the orange-grey of the clouds."

"On Pissarro's advice I'm abandoning the emerald green.."

"I knew van Gogh less intimately. I spoke to him for the first time in 1887 in a popular eatery near 'La Fourche', Avenue de Clichy, [Paris], (closed). A huge windowed room was decorated with his canvases. He exhibited at the 'Independants', [Paris] in 1888, 1889, 1890.."

"Degas is a hundred times more loyal [than other impressionist artists, then]. - I told Degas that Seurat's painting was very interesting. [Degas:] 'I would have noted that myself, Pissarro, except that the painting is so big!' Very well - if Degas sees nothing in it so much the worse for him. This simply means there is something precious that escapes him. We shall see."

"The impressionist paintings of Manet, Cezanne and Monsieur Degas, express with exemplary sincerity the new sensations, the new world our eyes experience. Now here the successors to these artists [Seurat & Pissarro ] are trying to perfect the forms created by them. They found in the notes of Delacroix, in the scientific discoveries of Chevreul and Rood, the suggestion for a type of painting in which color impressions are ordered by the combining of little multi-colored brush strokes. But while they were attentive to such improvement of the means, they forgot the true end of art, the sincere and complete expression of vivid sensations. The works of these painters - Pissarro and Seurat are the most notorious - are interesting only as the exercises of highly mannered virtuosos. Their paintings are lifeless for the painters did not strive for sincerity, being too taken up with external formulas."

"Seurat sent two canvases to Martinet [Paris' art-dealer], the latter, after having gone into raptures at Seurat's studio, began to stammer when directly asked to exhibit the paintings: the gas light, the white frame, the painter's own interest, etc., etc. I went to see him [Martinet], and since he had asked me to give him something to sell, he gave the most threadbare excuses; passing by with Seurat that evening we saw the two canvases, they were shown not on the boulevard, but on the Rue de Helder. Again our secret enemies, the Boulards and their consorts have been up to their old tricks. - I will send him nothing.."

"It is only in the period between adolescence and maturity and not during the earlier stages of development that any organism can unfold its full strength."

"In the midst of the titanic struggles of ideologies that dominate our age, it is from our prayers that we derive the firmest support for mind and soul."

"The modern world, more than in any preceding epoch, feels the necessity to learn anew how to pray."

"A ladder is the instrument of ascent; it symbolises intensity rising to a climax. this, too, is the meaning of prayer."

"There are three kinds of forces: the forces of nature, the spiritual and moral ones, and finally those of history and destiny."

"The community does not suffer deficiencies. What is lacking in one individual is made up by the other."

"Data is transformed into graphics to understand. A map, a diagram are documents to be interrogated. But understanding means integrating all of the data. In order to do this it’s necessary to reduce it to a small number of elementary data. This is the objective of the “data treatment” be it graphic or mathematic."

"The problem that still remains to be solved is that of the orderable matrix, that needs the use of imagination... When the two components of a data table are orderable, the normal construction is the orderable matrix. Its permutations show the analogy and the complementary nature that exist between the algorithmic treatments and the graphical treatments."

"His books Semiology of Graphics and Graphics and Graphic Information Processing have been stimuli for my own thinking about the representation and analysis of geographic information. I have also used both books as core readings for graduate seminars and they have generated lively discussion and prompted innovative research. I often ask graduate students to consider how cartographic research and practice in the U.S. might be different today if the English edition of Semiology of Graphics had appeared in 1967 (when it was published in French), rather than in 1983. I know that my own work would have been dramatically different if I had encountered these ideas a decade and a half sooner."

"The author has the reputation of being against color. I am indeed against color when it masks incompetence; when it allows the superimposition of characteristics to the point of absurdity; when people believe it capable of representing ordered data."

"The use of computers shouldn’t ignore the objectives of graphics, that are:"

"Although his work was very original, it is typical of the 50s to 70s. He was not the only one to analyze images. Roland Barthes has worked on advertisements, Pierre Bourdieu on photography... His work can be considered as a typical structuralist analysis, because he focuses on the relationship between elements of graphics, and not on the elements themselves. And it is a very modern work, which proclaims that graphics are not static. Graphic mobility is a way of processing information, as all those who have used Bertin's matrices have noticed. His heritage goes far beyond Geography and has been very useful in visual data analysis."

"As with any graphic, networks are used in order to discover pertinent troups of to inform others of the groups and structures discovered. It is a good means of displaying structures, However, it ceases to be a means of discovery when the elements are numerous. The figure rapidly becomes complex, illegible and untransformable."

"A graphic is a diagram when correspondences on the plane can be established among all elements of another component."

"The aim of the graphic is to make the relationship among previously defined sets appear."

"A graphic is not 'drawn' once and for all; it is 'constructed' and reconstructed until it reveals all the relationships constituted by the interplay of the data.... A graphic is never an end in itself; it is a moment in the process of decision-making."

"[Bertin's 'color' refers to] the repertoire of colored sensations which can be produced at equal value."

"Value perception dominates color perception."

"If, in order to obtain a correct and complete answer to a given question, all other things being equal, one construction requires a shorter observation time than another construction, we can say that it is more efficient for this question."

"[The special properties of visual perception of data]... is the visual means of resolving logical problems."

"While the early days of visualization go back over 200 years, actual research to understand how it works really only started in the 1960s. Jacques Bertin’s Sémiologie Graphique (Semiology of Graphics), published in 1969, was the first systematic treatment of the different ways graphical representations encode data. Bertin coined many terms of the trade, such as the mark, which is the basic unit of every visualization, like a bar, line, or circle sector. He also defined a number of retinal variables, which are the visual properties we use to express the data; these include color, size, location, etc."

"[Overall level questions involved an] understanding of the deep structure of the data being presented in their totality, usually comparing trends and seeing groupings."

"Information is the reply to a question."

"The plane is the mainstay of all graphic representation. It is so familiar that its properties seem self-evident, but the most familiar things are often the most poorly understood. The plane is homogeneous and has two dimensions. The visual consequences of these properties must be fully explored."

"And now, at the end of the twentieth century, with the pressure of modern information and the advances of data processing, graphics is passing through a new and fundamental stage. The great difference between the graphic representation of yesterday, which was poorly dissociated from the figurative image, and the graphics of tomorrow, is the disappearance of the congential fixity of the image."

"There are as many types of questions as components in the information."

"Graphics owes its special significance to its double function as a storage mechanism and a research instrument."