Radical Harmony review – Seurat’s shimmering visions blow away his spotty dotty imitators

National Gallery, London
The tradition of neo-impressionism begun by Georges Seurat was radical, even revolutionary, but this po-faced showcase is sadly lacking its joyful dazzle

Georges Seurat had kaleidoscope eyes. He saw in limitless colours, that swarm and bubble on his canvases in galaxies of tiny dots. Choosing random, barren subjects – an empty harbour, a rock – he found endless wonder in the most banal reality. In his 1888 painting Port-en-Bessin, a Sunday, myriad blues and whites create a hazy sky and mirroring water while a railing in the foreground explodes into purple, brown and orange as if it had a lurid spotty disease. Seurat only lived to the age of 31, but he inspired an entire art movement, the neo-impressionists, who copied his “pointillist” method.

Yet in a coarse-grained approach to this fine-grained art style, the National Gallery struggles to tell a different story. The neo-impressionists didn’t just paint dots, they dreamed of revolution. And by the way we shouldn’t call them by the evocative nickname “pointillist” because they didn’t like it.