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A Post Impressionist who used Pointillist techniques - he was a Neo Impressionist who produced conceptual works. Its easy to get mixed up and over look him...
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
The Bridge at Courbevoie
The Bridge at Courbevoie
Around 1886-87
Oil paint on canvas
Georges Seurat painted this view of the river Seine using a technique he had recently developed, called 'pointillism'. It entailed placing coloured dots side by side to create an image, instead of mixing colours on a palette. New optical theories at the time suggested that this made the surface of the painting more vibrant. However, the overall effect is one of melancholy and stillness, emphasised by the vertical trees and masts of the boats. The factory chimney in the background is a reminder that the riverside town of Courbevoie was rapidly becoming an industrial suburb of Paris.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
Young Woman Powdering Herself
Young Woman Powdering Herself
Around 1888-90
Oil paint on canvas
This work is the only major portrait painted by Georges Seurat, who died at the age of 31. It depicts his companion, Madeleine Knobloch, applying make-up. The theme of nature and artifice, represented by the use of cosmetics, is echoed in Seurat's distinctive technique, called 'pointillism'. He applied a 'skin' of coloured dots to the surface of his work to animate it and create volume. Following newly formulated optical theories, he placed colours from opposite sides of the colour wheel - orange and blue, pink and green - next to each other for greater contrast.
In the frame above the sitter's head was once a mirror showing the reflection of Seurat at his easel. After being ridiculed by a friend, Seurat replaced it with a vase of flowers, painting over his only known self-portrait.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
Fisherman in a Moored Boat
Fisherman in a Moored Boat
Around 1882
Oil paint on wood
The lively sketches along this wall were all painted by Georges Seurat. He used them to experiment with technique, try out new ideas for compositions and study specific elements for large-scale work. He also made many just for pleasure and considered them finished paintings in their own right.
Covering a span of eight years, the paintings reveal the evolution of Seurat's style. The short brushstrokes in the earliest sketches owe much to the Impressionists but also foreshadow Seurat's characteristic technique of using dots of pure colour to create forms and render light.
The portable, standard-sized wooden boards were ideal for painting out of doors and many studies reveal Seurat's interest in capturing reflections on the water, inspired by Impressionism. Fisherman in a Moored Boat is one such example. Seurat used the panel without first applying a preparation layer, allowing the natural colour of the wood to show through the paint. The dark tones suggest the scene takes place at sunset.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
Man Painting a Boat
Man Painting a Boat
Around 1883
Oil paint on wood
This swiftly painted scene shows the young Georges Seurat engaging with the mid-19th tradition of painting outdoors. Its cool colours, applied with criss-cross brushstrokes, also reveal Manet's influence. However, it is at that period that Seurat began to move away from the innovations of older artists in search of a more methodical way of capturing color and light.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
Man in a Boat
Man in a Boat
Around 1884
Oil paint on wood
This quick depiction of a boatman belongs to a group of studies that Georges Seurat made along the banks of the Seine on the outskirts of Paris. In these sketches, he experimented freely with different types of brush marks, uses of colour and levels of finish. Particularly striking here are the thick white brushstrokes used to create highlights on the bank of the river and the surface of the water. They confer great luminosity to the composition.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
Boat by the Riverbank
Boat by the Riverbank
Around 1883
Oil paint on wood
This small study is one of some fourteen preparatory oil sketches for Georges Seurat's first major large-scale painting, Bathers at Asnières, purchased by the Courtauld Fund for the National Gallery, London in 1924. The small, delicately applied dabs of paint recall those used by Monet and Renoir in their own riverside landscapes of the 1870s, on view nearby.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
The Angler
The Angler
Around 1884
Oil paint on wood
This solitary angler appears in Georges Seurat's iconic Sunday Afternoon on the lle de la Grande Jatte (Art Institute of Chicago), begun in 1884. Seurat made more than fifty preparatory studies for this monumental canvas, which depicts a crowd at leisure on an island on the Seine, just outside of Paris. Although some studies are devoted to the landscape setting, most focus, like this one, on the individual figures who populate the final work.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
Horses in the Water
Horses in the Water
Around 1883
Oil paint on wood
This study, which relates to Bathers at Asnières (National Gallery, London), shows an early version of the composition that Georges Seurat ultimately abandoned. Although he retained the general outline and slope of the riverbank in the finished painting, as well as the distant factories, he replaced the horses with two bathing boys, one of whom wears the red trunks seen on the rider in the foreground in this sketch.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
Study for 'Le Chahut'
Study for 'Le Chahut'
Around 1889
Oil paint on wood
A troupe of dancers perform the chahut, a high-kicking dance popular in Parisian nightclubs in the late 19th century. Georges Seurat was drawn to scenes of popular entertainment because their staging and artificiality offered fertile ground for exploring the theories of colour and movement central to his work. The red, blue and green palette, as well as the numerous lines and angles flaring upward, functioned, in his eyes, as abstract symbols of gaiety.
The missing painted border on the right indicates that the panel may have been cut down.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
Beach at Gravelines
Beach at Gravelines
1890
Oil paint on wood
This nearly abstract seascape is rendered with only a few colours, the separation between water and sky barely marked by the strip of orange in the centre. In it, Georges Seurat captured the cloudy radiance typical of the northern coast of France, where he spent several summers.
Although painted on the thin panel that Seurat favoured for studies, Beach at Gravelines is not preparatory for another painting but done simply for pleasure. Grains of sand embedded in the paint attest to its creation out of doors.
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