Born in 1859, Seurat’s artistic leanings led him to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1878, where he chose not to follow the current impressionist trend, instead developing the new technique of pointillism. This involved using tiny brushstrokes or dots of colour to create the image.
Seurat’s study of art was only interrupted by a year of military service in Brittany. The regimented life suited his personality and he used his spare time there for sketching.
He returned to Paris and shared an artist’s studio with friends before moving to a studio of his own. His sense of discipline saw him spend the next two years mastering black and white drawing, before moving on to his first major canvas in 1883.
The Rise of Pointillism
Bathers at Asnières was a huge canvas, and is considered to be a work of great importance as it used the new pointillism technique. In spite of having exhibited a smaller painting of Seurat’s the previous year, the Paris Salon rejected Bathers at Asnières. Seurat’s response was to join forces with fellow artists to form the Société des Artistes Independants. Their first exhibition was not a great success, but the Société learned from its mistakes and evolved to become a more professional organisation. Seurat would attend their meetings, sitting quietly and observing.
The beginning of neo-impressionism
A year later he began the canvas considered to be his finest – A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The work took two years to complete and was exhibited with the Impressionists in 1886. Seurat’s success at this event made him a talking point in the art world. This quiet, unassuming man was suddenly the centre of attention, but he still managed to live a tranquil life.
His working patterns now took on a regimented pattern. Seurat would spend each winter in his studio working on a large canvas for exhibition, while during the summer months he would be at the French coast, working on sketches and smaller paintings.
Seurat’s life was a short one. He died in 1891 at the age of thirty-one. Intensely private to the end, it was only in the final days of his life that he introduced his mistress – the model Madeleine Knobloch – and his young son to his family, and friends only learned of their existence after his death. The exact cause of his death is unknown but is thought to be diphtheria or a form of meningitis. Seurat’s death was followed by that of his son just two weeks later. A second child, also a boy, born shortly after the death of his father, died at birth.
The artist’s legacy was to create a smooth transition from impressionism to neo-impressionism, which encouraged other artists like Paul Signac to follow.
Some of Seurat’s paintings
- Bathers at Asnières (1883) The National Gallery, London
- A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-5) Art Institute of Chicago
- Femme Assise (1882-83) Guggenheim Museum, New York
- The Models (1888) Barnes Foundation Collection, Merion, Pennsylvania
- Le Cirque (1890) Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Further Reading
Seurat and the Making of La Grande Jatte, RL Herbert, 2004 University of California Press
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