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Lot Essay
In 1879 Ogden Rood published his treatise "Modern Chromatics", in which he presented the discovery of the scientific principals of optical fusion. His writings attracted the attention of the group of Impressionist painters who had been seeking a more systematic approach to rendering the effects of light and they applied this new understanding of how the eye mixed color to their painting. Rejecting the traditional system of mixing colors on a palette, they formulated a painterly technique in which pure pigments were placed directly on the canvas with short brushstrokes and art critics called the new technique "divisionism" or "pointillism".
Luce was one of the earliest practitioners of this technique and through his friendship with Camille Pissarro he came to know Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross. He exhibited seven "divisionist" paintings with the group in the third exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1887. His entries to the exhibition earned the favorable mentions of the art critic Félix Fénéon, who singled them out for praise. Luce was less bound by the theoretical dicta of optical fusion than the other members of his circle and his paintings favored a more instinctive approach that he applied with equal interest to landscapes and portraits. Luce visited Pissarro in Eragny and Signac in Herblay, and the exchange between the artists played an important role in Luce's development. So intertwined were the lives of these artists during this period that Seurat's family asked Luce to inventory the contents of Seurat's studio when he died in 1891.
In the beginning of 1895 Luce wrote to Henry Cross, "I have started a study, or rather a series of studies of street scenes; I am doing it from Besnard's, Rue des Abbesses, and it is devilishly hard. I want to render that movement of the crowd, which is fearfully difficult" (J. Bouin-Luce and D. Bazetoux, op. cit., p. 84). However, in the present work, Luce successfully overcame these concerns and attained his ultimate goal; the numerous figures, the colors of the shopfronts and the women's skirts, the presence of animals, indeed all the components of the canvas contribute to the overall effect of vibrant life and movement.
Luce was one of the earliest practitioners of this technique and through his friendship with Camille Pissarro he came to know Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross. He exhibited seven "divisionist" paintings with the group in the third exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1887. His entries to the exhibition earned the favorable mentions of the art critic Félix Fénéon, who singled them out for praise. Luce was less bound by the theoretical dicta of optical fusion than the other members of his circle and his paintings favored a more instinctive approach that he applied with equal interest to landscapes and portraits. Luce visited Pissarro in Eragny and Signac in Herblay, and the exchange between the artists played an important role in Luce's development. So intertwined were the lives of these artists during this period that Seurat's family asked Luce to inventory the contents of Seurat's studio when he died in 1891.
In the beginning of 1895 Luce wrote to Henry Cross, "I have started a study, or rather a series of studies of street scenes; I am doing it from Besnard's, Rue des Abbesses, and it is devilishly hard. I want to render that movement of the crowd, which is fearfully difficult" (J. Bouin-Luce and D. Bazetoux, op. cit., p. 84). However, in the present work, Luce successfully overcame these concerns and attained his ultimate goal; the numerous figures, the colors of the shopfronts and the women's skirts, the presence of animals, indeed all the components of the canvas contribute to the overall effect of vibrant life and movement.