Georges Seurat, a Neo-Impressionist, is credited along with Paul Signac as a founder of pointillism, a painting technique in which distinct dots of color are applied to the canvas to create a larger image. The style is almost an oxymoron, requiring the opposing skills of extreme mathematical precision and floating fields of color. Despite initial criticism of his paintings, Seurat’s innovative Impressionism eventually won him a place in history. Helene Kröller-Müller, an important female art patron—one of the first—assembled the world’s most comprehensive collection of Neo-Impressionist paintings: works by Seurat, Signac, Van Gogh, Camille Pissarro, and others. That collection is the basis for this exhibition at the National Gallery in London. —Hannah Gross