Georges Seurat Essay

Georges Seurat is recognized for pioneering the Neo-impressionist movement. He devised the painting techniques of both chromoluminarism and pointillism. Other artists of his time have been inspired by his creativity, and produced revolutionary art.
Georges-Pierre Seurat was born on the second of December in Paris, France on the modern rue René Boulanger to parents Antoine Chrysostome and Ernestine Faivre Seurat. He lived with his brother Emile Augustin, sister Marie-Berthe, and mother. Monsieur Seurat lived in Le Raincy, and visited his wife and children once a week at boulevard de Magenta. As the youngest of his siblings, Georges began to study art at the Ecole Municipale de Sculpture et Dessin, run by sculptor Justin Lequien.
In 1878, he advanced to the Ecole des Beaux Arts, taught by painter and portraitist Henri Lehmann. His education consisted of both conventional academics and artistic endeavors, often reproducing drawings devised by Old Masters1. In November of the following year, he would leave the academy for a year of service at the Brest Military Academy.
Little is known about Seurat’s life during his militaristic duties, until he returned to Paris.
With friend Edmond Aman-Jean, he moved into a small studio apartment at 16 rue de Chabrol. For the next two years, he would become devoted to the art of monochromatic drawing. In 1883 he finished a tonal black and white composition created with Conte crayons2 upon Michallet paper. It was displayed in the Paris Salon of 1883 shortly after his twenty-third birthday, and depicted Aman-Jean’s profile with paintbrush in hand.
It was on to Seurat’s first major painting. The emblematic Bathers at Asnieres portrayed a Parisian riverside on oil canvas. He prepared for the piece by drafting a drawings and oil sketches of the scene. It is his second most recognized painting. He continued to practice refining his brush strokes, color composition, and overall
technique.
Sauret’s world renown A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte braved the Neo-impressionism movement. The 19th century painting icon portrays people of each social class participating in different activities at the park. When regarding the scene, the eye observes tiny dots of multi-colored paint. The viewer optically blends the colors, and regards the painting as if the pigments were already physically blended upon the canvas. It took two years to complete, required months of sketches to prepare for, and was duplicated on a smaller scale that now lies in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Today, the original stands six feet tall and ten feet wide in the Art Institute of Chicago. The painting inspired the James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim musical, Sunday In The Park with George.
Seurat often painted live subjects, as showcased in Bathers at Asnieres and A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. However, the model depicted his portrait Jeune femme se poudrant remained anonymous until 1890, when the unnamed woman was revealed to be Madeleine Knobloch, who gave birth to their son Pierre-Georges that February. Seurat spent the summer of 1890 on the coast of Gravelines, where he painted four canvases including The Channel of Gravelines, Petit Fort Philippe, as well as eight oil panels, and created a few drawings. (Need to cite this)
Seurat’s artistic psyche was a conglomerate of emotion and mathematical precision. He loved the psychological affects of art, whether it appealed to the emotional or intellectual senses. Experimenting with complementary colors left him enthralled in the vividness of his paintings. This technique became “chromo-luminism” (better known as divisionism, or pointillism). With his craftsmanship, individual aspects of his melded in harmony. Impressionist artists Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Ingres, Eugene Delcroix, and Nicolas Poussin remained strong influences within his artistry, as well as his friends Felix Feneon, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, and Edouard Manet.
On the twenty-ninth of March, Seurat died at the age of thirty-one at his parent’s home in Paris. His cause of death remains uncertain, although being theorized as a combination of pneumonia, infectious angina, and diphtheria. His son died of the same disease a mere two weeks later. In the days to follow, a ceremony at the church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul was held in his memory thereupon being buried at Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise. His last work, The Circus, remains unfinished at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Seurat inspired artists all over the globe to capture color in a new light. From portraits of lovers to suburban leisure, he strived to overlook perceived pigment and redefine color composition. His work has inspired artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Bridget Riley, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Signac, and Edward Degas. Georges Seurat left his mark on the world by influencing creative minds all over the world, and devising paintings that provoked conversation about traditional artistry.