{"id":167543,"date":"2025-09-19T12:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T12:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/167543\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T12:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T12:02:11","slug":"a-neo-impressionism-show-for-the-one-percent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/167543\/","title":{"rendered":"A Neo-Impressionism Show for the One Percent"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON \u2014 What does socialism look like when earnestly perpetuated by extraordinarily wealthy benefactors sorely lacking in self-awareness? One answer might be found in Radical Harmony: Helene Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller\u2019s Neo-Impressionists<\/a> at the National Gallery. This can be seen both in its selection of works from Helene Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller\u2019s Pointillism (or more correctly, Neo-Impressionism) collection, and in the exhibition\u2019s commercial supporters. Our friends Griffin Catalyst<\/a>, which is stewarded by a billionaire CEO and Trump backer<\/a>, once again serves the people an exhibition in which critical curation takes a back seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller was born into a German family of industrialists, married a Dutch entrepreneur, and moved to the Netherlands in 1888. After becoming widowed, she inherited the business and became one of the wealthiest women in the Netherlands. She amassed 11,500 works and the world\u2019s largest collection of Neo-Impressionism, and acquired 90 works by Vincent van Gogh, often buying directly from the artist and close relatives. She eventually opened her own museum, stating that the works looked \u201cmonumental in a museum, more beautiful than in a room.\u201d The wall labels also venture that \u201cthe aims this remarkable collector hoped to realise shared Neo-Impressionism\u2019s socialist ambition: by widening access to works made through a radical quest for harmony in art, the world might become a better place.\u201d Ah, the idealism of excessive wealth.<\/p>\n

Neo-Impressionism is explained as the application of dots of opposing colors together, so that they become more vivid, as opposed to mixing colors on a chromatic scale and applying them with complete freedom of brushstroke. While radical in theory, this prescriptive method is thoroughly restrictive to the point of banality, as viewing so many examples en masse proves. Individual hues may \u201cpop\u201d to the eye, but images are confined to flat linearity, almost like \u201ccoloring in\u201d sections, as opposed to building up painterly layers as traditional modeling allows.<\/p>\n

Seascapes should be brilliantly vivid celebrations of light \u2014 but, as in Jan Toorop\u2019s \u201cSea\u201d of 1899, they appear insipid here, as the method is inadequate for capturing depth and thoroughly lacking impact. The rare exceptions prove the point: While van Gogh\u2019s \u201cThe Sower\u201d (1888) employs opposing yellow and blue, his use of longer, layered strokes infuses the work with thrilling dynamism. And Georges Lemmen\u2019s 1890 portrait of Jan Toorop varies the size of the \u201cdot,\u201d again to exciting effect. The majority of the rest of the works here, though \u2026. Just think about how a dot is by nature one-dimensional. Regardless of their number, in this format, they will only ever form a collection of dots.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tJan Toorop, \u201cSea\u201d (1899), oil on canvas<\/p>\n

Much is made of the politically radical \u2014 \u201csocialistic\u201d \u2014 iconographic content, such as Jan Toorop\u2019s depiction of workers in \u201cEvening: Before the Strike\u201d and \u201cMorning: After the Strike\u201d (1899\u201390), or Maximilien Luce\u2019s rendering of workers in \u201cThe Iron Foundry\u201d (1899). At least the wall text for the latter notes that, despite buying direct from the artist, Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller\u2019s husband, \u201cwithout any apparent sense of irony,\u201d hung it in the office of his iron ore and shipping business. This absurdity infuses the whole show, which exists because a wealthy benefactor \u2014 despite \u201csupporting\u201d the producers by buying from the artist direct \u2014 unironically chomped up all examples of an art movement that on paper represents socialist politics but is in itself technically prescriptive and stifling of deviation.<\/p>\n

Add to this the decidedly perfunctory curating \u2014 there is a room called \u201cThe Silent Picture\u201d dedicated to domestic pieces, which argues that this particular technique communicated a sense of isolation, though it\u2019s more an inadvertent effect if you ask me. And add to that the fact that this whole show was perpetuated by commercial supporters such as the philanthropic venture Griffin Catalyst, and the whole show feels more about commerce than curation. <\/p>\n

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\t\tGeorges Lemmen, \u201cJan Toorop\u201d (1886), cont\u00e9 crayon and white chalk on paper
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\t\tMaximilien Luce, \u201cThe Iron Foundry\u201d (1899), oil on canvas
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\tJan Toorop, \u201cMorning (After the Strike)\u201d (c. 1888\u201390)
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\t\tGeorges Seurat, \u201cPort-En-Bessin, a Sunday\u201d (1888), oil on canvas
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\t\tInstallation view of Radical Harmony: Helene Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller\u2019s Neo-Impressionists<\/p>\n

Radical Harmony: Helene Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller\u2019s Neo-Impressionists<\/a> continues at the National Gallery (Trafalgar Square, London) through February 8, 2026. It was curated by Julien Domercq, Chiara Di Stefano, Renske Cohen Tervaert, with Annabel Bai Jackson and Christopher Riopelle.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note 9\/18\/25 5:23pm EDT: A previous version of this article stated that Helene Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller \u201camassed 11,500 works and the world\u2019s largest collection of Neo-Impressionism, and acquired 90 works by Vincent van Gogh, buying directly from the artist.\u201d The wording his been clarified to reflect the fact that she often bought directly from the artist or close family members. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 What does socialism look like when earnestly perpetuated by extraordinarily wealthy benefactors sorely lacking in self-awareness?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,1150,100925,5976],"class_list":["post-167543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-london","tag-national-gallery-london","tag-post-impressionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}