The study of color, optics, and perception flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century. Scientist-writers including Eugène Chevruel and Ogden Rood published influential investigations, and several artists, led by Georges Seurat, incorporated these theories into their artistic practices. Seurat placed small dots of complementary and contrasting pigments alongside one another so that, at a distance, the eye would fuse together the colors to form an image, often divorcing it from reality and infusing it with previously unimagined emotive power.