Luce: One of the best representatives of the Neo-Impressionist movement

Maximilien-Jules-Constant Luce (13 March 1858 – 6 February 1941) was a prolific French Neo-Impressionist artist. He was born on 13 March 1858 in Paris, France, to the son of a railway clerk. They live in the Montparnasse district, where the working class of Paris is concentrated.

Luce is known for its paintings, illustrations, prints, and graphic arts. He started as a carver and then focused on painting, first Impressionism, then Pointillist, and finally back to Impressionism. Luce has painted a wide variety of subjects during his long career. He most often creates landscapes, but his other works include portraits, still lifes (especially flowers), family scenes (such as bathers), and works by welders, mill operators, and other workers.

Notre Dame cathedral, 1900

Luce was one of the most productive of the Neo-Impressionists, producing more than two thousand oil paintings, quite a few watercolors, gouache, pastels and drawings, and more than a hundred prints. At the Musée d'Orsay Luce was evaluated as "one of the best representatives of the Neo-Impressionist movement". Although he has had many solo exhibitions in France, it wasn't until 1997, when he held a retrospective in Manhattan at Wildenstein & Company, that he first appeared in the United States. Notre Dame de Paris (1900), sold at auction for $4.2 million in May 2011, setting a new record for Luce's work.

Street of Paris Streets of Paris

In the early works, the irregular overlap of solid colors presents a deeply perspectived urban streetscape, dynamic pedestrian shuttles, breaking through the limitations of classical laws, and accepting the Neo-Impressionist style, while maintaining the free play of color combinations.

Pier Saint-Michel and Notre Dame Cathedral

Point color, that is, different colors are juxtaposed and overlapped in a dotted manner, and the visual synthesis of the picture through the viewer is a technique that combines color science. The warm-colored cathedral is vertically oriented in the middle of the picture, the cool-colored bridge and embankment in the shadows are horizontally balanced with the church, and the pedestrians are ordinary citizens of Paris, including the well-dressed middle class, the servants who buy vegetables, the mother-in-law and grandchildren holding hands, and the delivery vendors.