Georges Seurat
An iconic painter
of the 19th century, no other artists produced paintings precisely like
those of Seurat. Influenced by earlier artists from the 19th century
such as the Impressionists, Seurat took his work a step farther. With a
quick first glance his paintings can be mistaken for being just another
one of the Impressionist’s works. However, Seurat began an art style
that is still largely his own. This was Pointillism.
Pointillism is the use of single dot of color at a time. Unlike nearly
every artist that came before him, Seurat painted not in brushstokes or
sweeping swaths of color but tiny dots of paint that didn’t touch. From a
distance a large sweeping painting would be viewed. From very close up,
nothing can be seen but the dots of color. It is only from a distance
that the painting takes shape and becomes whole. An example of this is A Sunday at La Grande Jatte, one of Seurat’s most memorable paintings.
It isn’t so very unlike a large outdoor scene by Renoir or Monet.
However the canvas is much larger than almost any of the Impressionist
artists ever worked with. A huge 6 x 9 feet across, the figures are
nearly life sized. Unlike the Impressionist’s work, Seurat’s figures as
static, completely frozen in the moment. They do not have the fluid,
moving quality of an Impressionist figure, instead seeming to be frozen
in place like the people in a photograph. Social classes are also
intermingled in this painting, something not often seen in artist’s
work. A common, middle class worker lounges on the grass overlooking the
water. Behind him in the shadows stand a man and his wife observing the
same scene. Two dogs play at the feet of these two well dresses
individuals who are clearly of a high class than first. This same
intermingles of the higher and lower classes can be seen throughout the
piece.
Seurat also produced paintings more akin to posters than to most paintings of the age.Le Chahut
is another painting by Seurat, later than the first. Dancers kick their
legs up as they dance in a line across the stage. The orchestra plays
as they watch the dancers, smiles on their faces. This painting is much
more akin to poster promoting a show or special venue rather than a
formal painting to hang in a home. This work too is compiled of nothing
but thousands of tiny dots, each one varying ever so slightly in shade
and tone in order to get just the right light and shadowing for figures
and background alike.
By playing on the ideas and values that
the Impressionists put forward several decades before, Seurat brought
paintings closer to the twentieth century and the art of today. Such a
simple, yet painstaking process led to the continued growing of art
towards what we understand it as today.