His Early Days

Georges Seurat (1859-1891) was a French Painter known as the founder of the French school of Neo-Impressionism. He was born in 1859 in Paris, France. He was the youngest of his parent’s three children. Seurat’s father, Antoine, had earned a lot of wealth from his success in property speculation. Antoine had already retired and was living away from his family. He had spent most of his fortune when Seurat was born. Hence, Seurat had to spend most of his childhood in Le Raincy, away from the comfortable family home in Paris.

His Study of Art

Seurat began studying art at an early age. He studied at the Ecole Municipale de Sculpture et Dessin, an art academy close to the Seurat’s family home in Paris. In 1878, he moved to Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where the focus of the study was, mainly, copying and drawing from the artworks of masters. Upon completion of artistic training in 1879, he left for military service. Returning from military service, Seurat shared a studio with another artist, a friend and co-student, and started working at mastering the art of monochrome drawing. He exhibited his first work, a crayon drawing of Aman-Jean, in the year 1883.

‘Bathers at Asnieres’

It was in the same year, 1883, that Seurat started working on his major painting ‘Bathers at Asnieres‘. SincetThe Paris Salon rejected this painting, Seurat showed it in 1884 at the Groupe des Artistes Independents. The society’s highly disorganized way of functioning frustrated Seurat and a few other artists like him, they split away from it and formed their own society called the Societe des Artistes Independents.

The contemporary ideas about colour theory influenced the Seurat technique to a large extent. The technique used by Seurat for portraying the play of light using tiny brushstrokes of contrasting colours came to be called ‘Pointillism’ and ‘chromoluminarism‘. Seurat took inspiration from city streets, its dance parlours and nightclubs, and the parks and landscapes of the city of Paris and its suburbs. He, together with Paul Signac, pioneered the ‘pointillism style of painting technique.

His Famous Paintings

‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’, (1884-1886), ‘Bathers at Asnieres’ (1884), ‘The Circus’ (1890-91), ‘Circus Sideshow’ (1887-88), ‘The Eiffel Tower’ (1889), ‘Le Chahut’ (1890), ‘The Models’ (1888), ‘The English Channel at Grandcamp’ (1885), ‘The LIghthouse at Honfleur’ (1886), ‘The Channel of Gravelines, Petit Fort Philippe’ (1890), ‘Gray Weather, Grande Jatte’ (1886-1888), ‘The Seine at La Grand Jatte’ ‘Sunday on the Grande Jette’

Innovator of Pointillism

‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’, (1884-1886) was Seurat’s most famous work. Seurat painted it during the two year period from 1884 to 1886. This painting is the specimen of Seurat’s ‘Pointillism’ style. Pointillism is the result of Seurat’s quest for exploring the science of optics and color. Seurat found out that placing tiny dots of different colors next to one another could be an alternative to mixing the colours of paint on a palette. This would allow the eyes of the beholder to mix the colours. Originally, Steuart called it ‘Divisionism’ and later on, this style of painting came to be known as Pointillism.