Seurat, Charles Blanc, and Naturalist Art Criticism

El ojo del espectador

“…The choice to take a key personality in the scientific thought of the era under study as an example, as well as to deal with the perceptual processes and scientific knowledge of optics, is common among some of these studies. For instance, in his analysis of Seurat's work, Zimmermann (1989) references the writings of Charles Henry, Charles Blanc, and Gustave Kahn. Zimmermann's interest in Henry, which is paralleled by Alpers's interest in Huygens, is based on Henry's ability to exemplify the image of the human being -or, we could say, the typical viewer-by representing humanity's set of beliefs and knowledge at the time.…”