Georges Seurat (1859-1891) was a French painter and a major figure of Post-Impressionism. He invented Pointillism (or Divisionism), a technique based on the scientific juxtaposition of small dabs of pure color.
Georges Seurat(1859 — 1891)
Georges Seurat
France
6 min read
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born in Paris in 1859 into a middle-class family
- Painted 'Bathers at Asnières' (1884), his first large composition
- Created his masterpiece 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte' (1884-1886)
- Theorized Divisionism based on Chevreul's scientific research on color
- Died prematurely in Paris in 1891, at the age of 31
Works & Achievements
Seurat's first large composition, monumental and luminous, rejected by the official Salon but exhibited with the Indépendants.
A masterpiece of Pointillism and a manifesto of Neo-Impressionism, the result of nearly two years of work and countless studies.
A painting in which Seurat applies his technique to studio nudes, with “La Grande Jatte” visible in the background.
A nighttime scene of a fairground show in which Seurat explores artificial light and applies his theories on lines and emotions.
A cabaret dance treated according to the laws of Charles Henry: the rising lines convey gaiety and movement.
Seurat's last great canvas, left unfinished at his death, vibrant with dynamism and color.
Anecdotes
To paint his famous picture *A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte*, Seurat spent nearly two years studying the location. He would go there in the morning to make sketches and color studies, then return to the studio in the afternoon to assemble his enormous canvas, more than two meters by three.
Seurat almost never mixed his colors on the palette. He placed tiny dots of pure color side by side, relying on the viewer's eye to blend them at a distance: a blue dot next to a yellow dot was meant to create the impression of green. This scientific technique was called pointillism or divisionism.
Seurat drew inspiration from the work of the scientists of his time on color, notably the chemist Eugène Chevreul and his laws on the simultaneous contrast of colors. He wanted to turn painting into an almost scientific approach, rigorous and demonstrable.
Seurat died very young, at only 31, carried off in a few days by an infectious disease (probably tonsillitis or meningitis). His last great painting, *The Circus*, remained unfinished on his easel.
Discreet and secretive, Seurat had hidden from nearly all his friends that he was living with a young woman, Madeleine Knobloch, and that they had had a child. His close friends only learned of it at the time of his sudden death in 1891.
Primary Sources
Art is Harmony. Harmony is the analogy of Opposites, the analogy of Likes, in tone, in hue, in line.
If, in M. Seurat's Grande Jatte, one considers a patch of a few square centimetres of uniform hue, one finds on each of these centimetres, in a swarming of dots, all the elements that make up the hue.
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is presented to the public among the works of the new painters known as Neo-Impressionists.
Key Places
Seurat's birthplace, where he grew up, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and spent most of his life as an artist.
An island in the Seine at the edge of Paris, a Sunday strolling spot that Seurat immortalized in his most famous painting.
An industrial suburb on the banks of the Seine, the setting of “Bathers at Asnières,” Seurat's first large composition.
Seurat received a classical academic training here from 1878, in the studio of the painter Henri Lehmann.
Ports on the English Channel where Seurat spent his summers painting luminous, calm seascapes using his Divisionist technique.
