Georges Seurat
Georges Seurat was a French Post-Impressionist painter who is best known for inventing Pointillism. The technique uses small dots of pure colour that are too small to be distinguished when looking at the painting from far away, but create a luminosity of colour not attainable by mixing paints on the canvas.
His Life
Seurat was born into a wealthy family in Paris in 1859 and studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris for a year in 1878. He was a shy individual who enjoyed learning about science and theories. His art schooling was interrupted by military service in 1879, after which he set up a studio in Paris with friend Aman-Jean. These first few years in the studio were spent mastering the art of monochrome conte drawings.
‘Bathers at Asnières’ by Georges Seurat - 1884
His first large-scale painting ‘Bathers at Asnières’ was rejected by the Paris Salon. In reaction to this, Seurat set up the ‘Societé des Artistes Independents’ in July 1884 with a group of other artists including Paul Signac.
As a result, Seurat is now considered to be a founding member of Neo-Impressionism, a reaction to the spontaneity of Impressionism. Seurat died suddenly at the age of 31 of suspected meningitis. His young son died of the same illness two weeks later. He left 7 large figure-based paintings, around 30 landscapes and over 200 conte drawings.
His Work
His first exhibited work was a selection of conte drawings of his mother and Aman-Jean at the state-funded "Paris Salon" in 1883. He started work on his famous work ‘Bathers at Asnières’ in 1883 but the Salon refused to show it at their exhibition in 1884 because of the subject matter. The painting showed a group of working class young men lounging by the Seine, and the only acceptable subjects for such a large painting (2m by 3m) at that time were history, religion or the classics.
Seurat spent much of his time on the small island of La Grand Jatte, where he completed his masterpiece ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte’ - 1884. When he exhibited this work at an Impressionists group show, his ground- breaking style of using small dots of colour was praised by the critics and the piece ultimately ended up being exhibited in America where it resides today.
His Style
Seurat believed in the science of colour and developed a style of painting where he painted huge canvases with tiny dots of the primary colours (red, yellow and blue) plus their compliments, which forced the viewer's eye to optically mix the colours in their minds when they stood back from the canvas.
Each touch of paint represented (1) the colour of the object, (2) the light that falls on it, (3) the reflections from nearby objects or (4) the complementaries of the surrounding colours. But Seurat wasn't just interested in colour. He also was obsessed with composition, aiming to achieve balance and harmony of composition using line, form and colour in each of his paintings.
His Influences
Seurat was fascinated by the scientist Eugene Chevreul's 1839 paper on ‘The Law of Simultaneous Contrast of Colours’ - as well as the theory of aesthetics and the relationship between line and images. He meticulously studied classical painters such as Raphael and Poussin, and loved Delacroix's vibrant colour palette. He learnt from Delacroix how the colours of an object reflected onto its surroundings.
Although he admired the Impressionists' use of colour and light, Seurat wanted to move away from their style. Whereas they would work ‘en plein air’ (outdoors) and aim to capture a ‘fleeting moment’, Seurat would do many studies for his paintings, and would then paint in his studio, working on each painting for many months. His simplified, smooth-outlined forms remind us of the sculptural forms he studied at art college. Unlike the Impressionists, who tended to rely on instinct and the inspiration of the moment, Seurat's neo-impressionist style employed rules and methods in painting, giving Neo-Impressionism a scientific basis.