Georges-Pierre Seurat is a French painter-painter of the late 19th century who became famous as the founder of neo-impressionism. Georges Seurat’s work develops a technique that was unique at that time, which consisted in the application of many closely spaced dots of pure colors to the canvas. When viewing the picture from a distance, the dots merged, forming complex colors in the eyes of the viewer. This technique had a great influence on the artist’s contemporaries and representatives of different trends in the 20th century.
Biography of Georges Seurat
Georges Seurat was born on December 2, 1859 in Paris. He was the third child in a wealthy family and never knew financial difficulties. Any hobbies of the boy were encouraged, and his desire to seriously engage in creativity did not raise objections. Georges Seurat easily entered the School of Fine Arts and mastered the academic writing technique well, but studied for only two years. However, this training proved to be important for its further development. The headmaster of the school was the author of a theoretical work in which the laws of color and light were considered. From this and other scientific works, the artist later deduced the pointillism style.
Seurat’s search for new means of expression was inspired by the fourth exhibition of the Impressionists, held in Paris on the Avenue Opera in 1879. The young painter was especially impressed by the work of Claude Monet and Edgar Degas. However, the pointillism developed by him is radically different from the painting of the Impressionists. The latter worked quickly and intuitively, trying to capture the fleeting moment. Georges Seurat’s technique is painstaking and laborious, and the image looks unshakable and looks more like an eternity than a moment.
At the preparatory stage, the author also went to the open air, but the bulk of the work took place in the workshop.
The official Salon rejected this work, and Seurat never went there again, joining independent artists. At the same time, he met Paul Signac, who was carried away by the new direction and published its theoretical foundations.
Real fame came to Georges Seurat at the eighth Parisian exhibition of the Impressionists, held in 1886. And the work “Sunday on the island of La Grande Jatte”, filled with many smallest details, presented on it, is still considered the highest achievement of the master. In the future, the author remained faithful to his technique. All his subsequent works were performed according to the principles of pointillism.
The artist’s life ended abruptly and prematurely, it happened on March 29, 1891.
Georges Seurat died of an acute infectious disease, at that time he was only 31 years old. In his personal life, this man was so closed that only a few days before his death, relatives learned about the existence of his son, born to the model Madeleine Knobloch. Her portrait can be seen in the painting The Powdery Woman. Unfortunately, the boy died two weeks after his father from the same illness.
Although Neo-Impressionism did not last long, it had a significant impact on the further development of art.
In the technique of pointillism, they wrote for some time:
- Camille Pissarro
- Vincent Willem van Gogh
- Paul Gauguin
- Henri Matisse.
Later, his influence was recognized by the cubists and abstractionists.
