Georges Seurat
31 Years
Background History
Georges Seurat was born on December 2nd, 1859 in Paris, France. His father was a legal official who was withdrawn from the people around him. His mother was quiet, but gave a sense of warmth to the family. While growing up, Seurat displayed many characteristics of his father. He was quiet, reserved, and sophisticated. In the year 1878, Seurat enrolled in an official art school in Paris called Ecole des Beaux-Arts. While he was there, he rejected the popular style of the Impressionists and created a new technique called Pointillism. Other artists at the school liked his new technique and decided to imitate that into their own artwork. In 1879, he spent a year in the military and returned to Paris in 1880 to spend the majority of his time creating art. Throughout the following years, he continued to create many beautiful pieces of art and he even had a son with a young model named Madeleine Knobloch. He ultimately died in March of 1891 after he contracted a form of meningitis.
Art Movement and Contribution
Seurat was involved with the Post-Impressionism art movement. He did not like the Impressionist style because he felt that it lacked emotional and spiritual elements. He also felt that the style had too many limitations and lacked detail. He eventually contributed to the art movement by creating a new technique called Pointillism. Pointillism is when an artist uses a mixture of color applied in small dots that blends when viewed from afar. Seurat often sketched his artwork outside to capture the effects of natural light and color and then fixed it in his studio using the Pointillism technique.
Georges Seurat's Paintings
The Siene at la Grande Jatte
Landscape of The Ile De France
Horse and Cart
Seated Boy With Straw Hat
Rainbow
The Bridge View Of The Seine
A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte
This painting is Georges Seurat's most famous painting. He started working on it in 1884 and finished in 1886. In this painting, Seurat has illustrated people relaxing on a Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte. This is my favorite painting of Seurat's because I like that his Pointillism technique is really visible. I also like the colors that he used and I think that it is neat that he used color for the shadows instead of black. He also has a lot going on in the painting so the whole picture is interesting to look at.