Georges Seurat Showed his vision of art through Pointillism

DECEMBER 02, ON THIS DAY

Harmony is the analogy of contrary and similar elements of tone, of color, and of line, conditioned by the dominant key, and under the influence of a particular light, in gay, calm, or sad combinations.

Georges Seurat

One of the most important Post-Impressionist painters is Georges-Pierre Seurat. In order to reflect contemporary urban life, he established a structured, more monumental style of work, moving away from the Impressionist movement\’s seeming spontaneity and quickness. Seurat is mostly recognised as the creator of the Neo-Impressionist method known as Pointillism, or Divisionism, which is characterised by a surface covered in sparsely spaced-out colour dots or strokes. He had a keen interest in colour science. Georges Seurat discovered that by placing tiny dots of various colours adjacent to one another on his canvas, his eye would blend the colours for him instead of his having to do it! He believed that this aesthetic made his paintings look bolder and more vibrant. The French painter and draughtsman Georges Seurat was. His most renowned picture, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, changed the course of modern art by launching Neo-impressionism.

Paris welcomed Georges Seurat on December 2, 1859. He began painting and drawing while he was young, but his formal art education didn\’t begin until 1875 when he joined the \”École Municipale de Sculpture et Dessin\” under the instruction of the sculptor Justin Lequien. Together with his friend Edmond, Georges attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, also known as the School of Fine Arts, from 1878 to 1879. This was the same institution where nearly all of the most well-known artists in Europe received their training. Rembrandt and de Goya had a big impact on Georges\’ artwork while he was a student at the Ecole.

Seurat created the most well-known pieces of his career in the 1880s, employing the principles of pointillism. The Artist\’s Mother (1883) and Portrait of Edmond-François Aman-Jean (1883) were the first pieces from this time period. A Bath in Asnières (1884), a painting by Seurat that was displayed at the Salon des Indépendants in the same year, depicted a scene of several young people taking bath in the Seine, a frequent theme in Impressionist paintings.

Two years later, he completed his most famous work, Sunday afternoon on the island of Grande Jatte (1886), which was shown at the IX Impressionist Exhibition, with works by Edgar Degas, Jean-Louis Forain, Paul Gauguin, Signac, and Pissarro, among others. This picture depicted a seasonal scene, people walking on the island of Grande Jatte. To complete this Seurat painting, he spent several hours studying and sketching, attempting to immortalise the setting and a great number of people who were wandering at the time.

In his painting Circus sideshow (1888), he depicted a circus performance while highlighting the location\’s enigmatic and slightly sinister mood. A short time later, he presented The Eiffel Tower (1889), a work in progress depicting the tower. El Chahut (1890), The Channel of Gravelines (1890), Petit Fort Philippe (1890), and El Circo were among the paintings that he displayed at the start of the 1890s (1891). Following the exhibition, the young painter\’s health deteriorated due to diphtheria, a condition that claimed his life on March 29, 1891, in Paris.

Seurat was attempting to achieve realism in his art through Pointillism, which led to criticism of the new style once the picture was displayed. Now, art historians and critics laud Seurat\’s method as a game-changer for post-impressionist art. Seurat thought that every artist has their own vision of art and that they should be allowed to express it in their paintings without fear of change. At one point, there was the rational and gentle Seurat, and at another, there was a scientist who was desperately trying to find ways to make art more logical.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Seurat
2. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/seurat-georges/
3. https://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/georges-seurat

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