Their controversial approach had challenged the art establishment for the best part of two decades by the time of their last group exhibition in Their paintings had achieved limited acceptance among some critics and collectors and ridicule had slowly given way to a grudging respect and partial understanding, although commercial success remained a fugitive goal for others. Their intuitive approach to the study of light and colour resulted in the use of random, layered and variable brush strokes to capture fleeting, atmospheric moments from the world around them.
As the pace of change in all things accelerated towards the end of the nineteenth century, so it was for the art world. This led him to experiment with the technique of placing discrete touches or points hence pointilism of different colours adjacent to one another and allowing visual receptors in the eye of the viewer to mix them, rather than mixing them on the palette. Indeed it was his championing of the new technique that persuaded his fellow-impressionists to allow work by Seurat and Paul Signac, a fellow-devotee, to be included in the show.
By now the cohesion of the impressionists had weakened and the time seemed right for new talent with fresh ideas to make their mark. However, there was no hint of satire in his remark as he was already an enthusiast for the style. It was not unknown for individuals of wealth and privilege to regard themselves as bohemians — a far cry from the original Romany vagabonds who reached western Europe via Bohemia.
To some extent painting had always been a vehicle for state-sponsored propaganda and in France this was exemplified in the way that the Academie and Official Salon held sway over the art world. Literature had a long tradition of challenge to the establishment and the second half of the nineteenth century was a time when artists, writers and philosophers made common cause to expound their theories about society and politics.
Painting was still a powerful vehicle for communicating these ideas in a world still lacking universal literacy and before the advent of other forms of communication such as mass circulation publications, cinema, broadcasting and, more recently, the internet and all the possibilities for disseminating information that presents.
