Georges Seurat (1859-1891) French Modern Artist

Georges Seurat
Georges Seurat (1859-1891) French Modern Artist
Paris, France
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Where did Georges Seurat grow up?
Georges Seurat grew up in Paris, France. He had a brother
and a sister. His parents were wealthy allowing him to
focus on his art. He was a quiet and intelligent child who
kept to himself. Georges attended the School of Fine
Arts, École des Beaux-Arts in Paris starting in 1878. He
also had to serve a year in the military. Then he returned
to Paris to continued his art. He spent the next two years
drawing in black and white. His first art studio was shared
with two friends. Later he moved to a studio of his own.
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With the help of his parents, Georges set up his own
art studio not far from their house. Because his
parents supported him, Georges was able to paint
and explore any areas of art he chose. Most of the
poor artists at the time had to sell their paintings to
survive.
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Georges’ first major painting was Bathers at
Asnieres. It was a large painting of people relaxing
near the water at Asnieres. He was proud of the
painting and submitted it to the official French art
exhibition, the Salon. The Salon was the official art
exhibition sponsored by the Académie des BeauxArts in Paris. The Salon, however, rejected his work.
He joined the Society of Independent Artists and
presented his art at their exhibition.
A huge canvas titled Bathers at Asnières shows young men relaxing by the Seine in Paris. The use of color and light tone is
Impressionism. The painting has smooth, simplified textures.
Seurat was born in France in 1859. He created a new style of painting called
m.”
is painting with little dots and dashes of color. If you look at Seurat’s paintings
you see are dots, but when you move away from the painting, your eyes form the
picture.
Georges Seurat was born in France in 1859. He crea
“Pointillism.”
Georges Seurat was a painter who was interested in shape and pattern,
but he approached these things in a very unusual way. He created a
special new way of painting known as pointillism. He used tiny dots of
pure color, side by side to make his paintings. These tiny dots of paint,
when placed side by side, let’s you see the colors blended on the
canvas.
Look at this from a
distance and you can see
how the dots blend
together.
Even though no orange
paint was used, red and
yellow create orange in the
painting.
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In 1884 Seurat began to work on his masterpiece.
He would use pointillism to paint a huge painting
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
It would be 6 feet 10 inches tall by 10 feet 1 inch
wide, but would be painted entirely with small dots
of paint. The painting was so large that it took him
nearly two years of non-stop work to finish. Each
morning he would go to the scene and make
sketches. Then in the afternoon he would return to
his studio to paint until late at night. He kept the
painting a secret, not wanting anyone to know what
he was doing.
Seurat made over 3 million dots on this piece!
3,456,000
dots one at a time!
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1886) by Georges Seurat | Oil on Canvas
Georges Seurat died on March 29, 1891 at the age of 31. He completed 7 large-scale
paintings and about 500 smaller ones during his lifetime.
His most important works include Bathers at Asnieres,
The Circus (Le Cirque) and A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which is
considered his most celebrated work.
The Circus (1891) by Georges Seurat | Oil on Canvas
• Interesting Facts about Georges Seurat
• He had a wife and child.
• He must have had a great amount of
patience to paint such large paintings using
only small dots of color.
• His paintings worked a lot like computer
monitors work today. His dots were like
the pixels on a computer screen.
• His final painting was The Circus.
Occupation?
Lived?
Style?
3 most famous painting?
• How did Seurat gave the world of art new
ideas in color and how the eye works
together with color?
blue/yellow=?
yellow/red=?