Georges Pierre Seurat was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough surface.
Paintings by Georges Seurat
The Circus (Seurat) (1891)
The Circus (French: Le Cirque) is an oil on canvas painting by Georges Seurat. It was his last painting, made in a Neo-Impressionist style in 1890–91, and remained unfinished at his death in March 1891. The painting is located at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
The painting was Seurat's third major work treating the theme of the circus, after his Parade (Circus sideshow) of 1887–88 and Le Chahut of 1889–90. It depicts a female performer standing on a horse at the Circus Fernando (renamed the Circus Médrano in 1890, after its most famous clown). The Circus Médrano was located at the corner of the Rue des Martyrs and the Boulevard de Rochechouart, close to Seurat's studio. It was a popular entertainment in Paris, depicted in the 1880s by other artists such as Renoir (for example, Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (Francisca and Angelina Wartenberg)), Degas (for example, Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando) and Toulouse-Lautrec (for example, Equestrienne (At the Circus Fernando)).
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884)
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (French: Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte) was painted from 1884 to 1886 and is Georges Seurat's most famous work. It is recognised as a leading example of pointillist technique and as a founding work of the neo-impressionist movement.
Seurat's composition, painted on a large canvas, includes a number of Parisians at a park on the banks of the River Seine. It is held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Bathers at Asnières (1884)
Bathers at Asnières (French: Une Baignade, Asnières) is an 1884 oil on canvas painting by the French artist Georges Pierre Seurat, the first of his two masterpieces on the monumental scale. The canvas is of a suburban, placid Parisian riverside scene. Isolated figures, with their clothes piled sculpturally on the riverbank, together with trees, austere boundary walls and buildings, and the River Seine are presented in a formal layout. A combination of complex brushstroke techniques and a meticulous application of contemporary color theory bring to the composition a sense of gentle vibrancy and timelessness.
Seurat completed the painting of Bathers at Asnières in 1884, at 24 years old. He applied to the jury of the Salon of the same year to have the work exhibited there, only to be rejected. The Bathers continued to puzzle many of Seurat’s contemporaries, and the picture would only be widely acclaimed many years after the artist's death at age 31. An appreciation of the piece's merits grew during the twentieth century; today it hangs in the National Gallery, London, where it is considered a highlight of the gallery’s collection of paintings.
Models (painting) (1886)
Models, also known as The Three Models and Les Poseuses, is a work by Georges Seurat, painted between 1886 and 1888 and held by the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Models was exhibited at the fourth Salon des Indépendants in spring of 1888.
The piece, the third of Seurat's six major works, is a response to critics who deemed Seurat's technique inferior for being cold and unable to represent life. As a response, the artist offered a nude depiction of the same model in three different poses. In the left background is part of Seurat's 1884–1886 painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
Young Woman Powdering Herself (Seurat) (1889)
Young Woman Powdering Herself (French: Jeune femme se poudrant) is an oil on canvas painting executed between 1889 and 1890 by the French painter Georges Seurat. Considered a leading example of pointillism, it is Seurat’s only single-subject portrait and depicts his mistress, Madeleine Knobloch, sitting at her dressing table.
The painting has been the subject of various scholarly interpretations, including scholarship that emphasizes themes of artifice and human vanity. Decades after it was first displayed at the Sixth Salon des Indépendants in March 1890, modern scientific imagining revealed a hidden self-portrait of Seurat under the top layers of paint. As a result,Young Woman Powdering Herself is the only known self-portrait of Seurat.
Le Chahut (1889)
Le Chahut (English: The Can-can) is a Neo-Impressionist painting by Georges Seurat, dated 1889–90. It was first exhibited at the 1890 Salon de la Société des Artistes Indépendants (titled Chahut, cat. no. 726) in Paris. Chahut became a target of art critics, and was widely discussed among Symbolist critics.
The painting—representing a can-can at the Moulin Rouge—influenced the Fauves, Cubists, Futurists and Orphists.
The Channel of Gravelines, Petit Fort Philippe (1890)
The Channel of Gravelines, Petit Fort Philippe is a pointillist painting by French artist Georges Seurat, located in the Indianapolis Museum of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana. Painted in 1890, the year before his death, it depicts a harbor in the small French port of Gravelines. Described as "wistful and poetic," it is one of the treasures of the IMA.
As one of Seurat's final paintings, The Channel of Gravelines, Petit Fort Philippe demonstrates beautifully the principles of Seurat's own Neo-Impressionist movement. His systematic application of dots in colors carefully chosen according to laws of chromatic harmony results in unparalleled luminosity. Seurat painted a narrow border of darker dots around the edge of the canvas, heightening the brilliance of the light. The frame (a reproduction of Seurat's original design) with its vivid ultramarine base and dots echoing the adjacent canvas, enhances the colors still further. In addition to his careful control of the dots' color, Seurat also used their shape and density to achieve his vision. The extremely solid central bollard has the greatest density of dots, while the right side of the sky is so loosely covered that the white ground layer is visible. Based upon the bright light and stark shadows, Seurat painted in midafternoon.
Parade de cirque (1888)
Parade de cirque (English: Circus Sideshow) is an 1887–88 Neo-Impressionist painting by Georges Seurat. It was first exhibited at the 1888 Salon de la Société des Artistes Indépendants (titled Parade de cirque, cat. no. 614) in Paris, where it became one of Seurat's least admired works. Parade de cirque represents the sideshow (or parade) of the Circus Corvi at place de la Nation, and was his first depiction of a nocturnal scene, and first painting of popular entertainment. Seurat worked on the theme for nearly six years before completing the final painting.
Art historian Alfred H. Barr Jr. described Parade de cirque as one of Seurat's most important paintings, its 'formality' and 'symmetry' as highly innovative, and placed it as "the most geometric in design as well as the most mysterious in sentiment" of Seurat's major canvases.
The Lighthouse at Honfleur (1886)
The Lighthouse at Honfleur is an 1886 landscape painting by the French artist Georges Seurat. It depicts a view of the harbour of Honfleur a coastal resort in Le Havre in Normandy dominated by a lighthouse and jetty. It features the largest of the towns three lighthouses and its western jetty. The painting is also known as The Hospice and the Lighthouse of Honfleur (French: L'Hospice et le Phare de Honfleur).
Seurat was a founder of Neo-Impressionism whose use of Pointillism was a radical departure in modern art. He produced a number of coastal scenes during visits to Normandy, including seven begun on this trip to Honfleur but completed in his Paris studio. Today the painting in the National Gallery of Art in Washington., having been presented by Paul Mellon in 1983.
Corner of the harbour, Honfleur (1886)
Corner of the harbor of Honfleur
The Gravelines Channel, towards the sea (1890)
The canal of Gravelines, in the direction of the sea
Landscape with Puvis de Chavannes' Poor Fisherman (1881)
Il povero pescatore, o/tv, 16,8x25,4 cm, M. d'Orsay, Paris