Monday, January 22, 2018

Artist of the day, January 22: Georges Seurat , French painter (Pointillism, Neo-Impressionism)

Georges Seurat (1859 - 1891) was a French painter and draftsman. His large work Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, his most famous painting, altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-impressionism, and is one of the icons of 19th century painting.

Seurat was born into a very rich family in Paris. His father, Antoine Chrysostom Seurat, was a legal official and a native of Champagne; his mother, Ernestine Faivre, was Parisian.

Georges Seurat first studied art with Justin Lequiene, a sculptor. Seurat attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1878 and 1879. After a year of service at Brest military academy, he returned to Paris in 1880. He shared a small studio on the Left Bank with two student friends before moving to a studio of his own. For the next two years he devoted himself to mastering the art of black and white drawing. He spent 1883 on his first major painting - a huge canvas titled Bathers at Asnieres.

After his painting was rejected by the Paris Salon, Seurat turned away from such establishments, instead allying himself with the independent artists of Paris. In 1884 he and other artists (including Maximilien Luce) formed the Societe des Artistes Independants. There he met and befriended fellow artist Paul Signac. Seurat shared his new ideas about pointillism with Signac, who subsequently painted in the same idiom. In the summer of 1884 Seurat began work on his masterpiece, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which took him two years to complete.

Later he moved from the Boulevard de Clichy to a quieter studio nearby, where he lived secretly with a young model, Madeleine Knobloch. In February 1890 she gave birth to his son. It was not until two days before his death that he introduced his young family to his parents. Shortly after his death, Madeleine gave birth to his second son, whose name is unknown, and who died at birth or soon after.

The cause of Seurat's death is uncertain, and has been attributed to a form of meningitis, pneumonia, infectious angina, and/or diphtheria. His last ambitious work, The Circus, was left unfinished at the time of his death.


1881, Coucher de soleil

1882,  Ville d'Avray, France, maisons blanches

1882, Champs à Barbizon (Field in Barbizon), ca. 1882

1882, The Stone Breaker

1882-83, Farm Women at Work

1882-83, Peasant Woman Seated in the Grass

1883,  Bathers in the Water

1883,  The Watering Can

1883, Boat by the Bank, Asnieres

1883, Clothes on the Grass (Vêtements sur l'herbe)

1883, House among Trees

1883, Man Painting a Boat

1883, Study for 'Bathers at Asnières'

1883, Study for Une Baignade

1883, The Rainbow- Study for Bathers at Asnières

1883-84, Study for Bathers at Asnières

1884, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

1884, A Woman Fishing

1884, Bathing At Asnieres

1884, Cadet from Saint-Cyr

1884, L'Ile de la Grande Jatte

1884, La Rue St Vincent, Paris au printemps

1884, Man in a Boat


1884-86, Angler

1885, Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp

1885, La Seine A Courbevoie

1885-86, Alfalfa Fields, Saint-Denis

1886, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

1886, End of the Jetty, Honfleur

1886, La Grève du Bas Butin, Honfleur

1886, Model from the back

1886, Study for "La Grande Jatte"

1886, Study for 'La Grande Jatte'

1886, The "Maria", Honfleur

1886, The Harbour at Honfleur

1886, The Lighthouse at Honfleur

1886-88, Les Poseuses

1887, Bridge at Courbevoie

1887, Poseuse de face (Model, Front View)

1887-88, Circus Sideshow (detail)

1888,  The Seine seen from La Grande Jatte

1888, Port-en-Bessin

1888, Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, Normandy

1888, The Models

1888, The Outer Harbour at High Tide

1888, The river Seine at La Grande Jatte

1888-90. Young Woman Powdering Herself

1889, Study for 'Le Chahut'

1889, The Eiffel Tower

1889-90, Le Chahut

1890, Beach at Gravelines

1890, Study For The Channel At Gravelines Evening

1890, The Channel of Gravelines, Grand Fort-Philippe

1890, The Channel of Gravelines, Petit Fort Philippe

1890-91, Le cirque

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