Focus on this artwork and discuss the Description.
After Seurat's work premiered in Brussels in 1887, Toorop eagerly added those methods to his own repertoire. He became the most influential Dutch Neo-Impressionist, although his canvases in that style are rare and he frequently ignored that school's tenants, particularly the color principles. Their pointillist brushwork he used more readily, as in this painting. The couple gliding through the water may reflect his empathy for working men and women, a common Neo-Impressionist sentiment.
Toorop gave this landscape a very strong, geometrical structure. The sharply receding diagonals of the canals are echoed by the naked trunks of the pollard willows. These intersect with the ribbons of color in the sunset, its rosy hues firmly contrasting with the deep blues and greens of the landscape below. Broek in Waterland was once coveted by the director of the Boymans Museum, who lauded its "'simple, usually disciplined structure,' 'distinction,' and controlled 'rhythmic composition.'"
Seurat canvas Dutch Boymans Museum Broek in Waterland pointillist Seurat's Neo-Impressionist Brussels