ABSTRACT
Neo-Impressionism was, in its essentials, a response to Impressionism—specifically, a response to the improvisatory and romantic-lyrical elements in Impressionism. Georges Seurat and his Neo-Impressionist followers significantly enlarged the possibilities of painting by applying their finical methods to the Impressionist heritage. The optical painters and color-field abstractionists who stand in relation to Abstract Expressionism very much as the Neo-Impressionists stood in relation to Impressionism have had, perforce, to narrow the possibilities. The Henri Matisses are indeed closer to the lyric imperatives of Impressionism than to the classicizing aspiration of Neo-Impressionism. Compared to the classics of Neo-Impressionism, Matisse's "Luxe, calme et volupte" and "The Port of Abaill, Collioure" are wonderfully open and free, yet something of their openness and freedom derives from the strict analytical procedures of Seurat. The relation in which Matisse stood to Seurat is not the kind of creative relation that any abstract painter now working enjoys with any of his predecessors.
