Georges-Pierre SeuratBy Rachel Lapp

Artist Project

Vital Statistics

Born on December 2, 1859.

He died on march 29, 1891.

He is French and was born in Paris, France.

Personal Background

He was never around his father or brother.

He became close with his mother, Ernestine, and his uncle, Paul Hoeomonté. His uncle was the first to get him interested in art.

He had a long term relationship with his mistress who was a model for some of his art.

His mistress secretly gave birth to their son weeks before he died.

He liked to keep his family life and art life separate.

Key Historical Events

The industrial Revolution was occurring in the 1800’s.

One new invention was the light bulb, made by Thomas Edison.

Seurat was conscripted into the military for a year at the Garrison of Brest.

While there, he focused on drawing soldiers (1879).

In his work the Grande Jatte, it “hints at the social contradictions and injustices inherent in the differing sorts of leisure enjoyed by the workers and the Bourgeoisie.”

He was very afraid that his style would be corrupted by all the famous artists around him.

Influence on the Art World

He invented Pointillism or divisionism and neoimpressionism.

The first art classes he attended were at a local municipal art school.

He later attended Le Ecole des Beaux-Arts for two years. (the School of Beautiful Art.)

He had a very discipline teacher there, Jean-Auguste-Dominque Ingres.

His very first painted was rejected to be displayed at a Salon so he took it to an independent Art exhibit which contained art from Van Gogh and Signac.

Signac helped him get many more jobs afterwards.

Seurat created pointillism because he was very involved with art being made based on science.

He read the work of Chevreul, Helmholtz, Brucke and American physicist Ogden Nicholas Rood.

He had a love for Greek art.

Stylistic Traits

Impressionism: pointillism/ divisionism.

Many small dots of every color to blend and look as one but with texture.

The dots also made it blurrier to depict certain faces.

When he painted, he used oil on canvas’.

He wanted to collaborate natural sunlight into his paintings.

He painted scenes that were around where he lived.

A Sunday Afternoon in the Island of La Grande Jatte- 1886

Pointillism

Not one persons face is very clear

The weather is warm

It’s around the late afternoon

Bathing at the Asnières-1886

Pointillism

Peaceful

Nice weather

People are enjoying themselves

No faces can easily be depicted

Young Woman Powdering Herself-1890

Pointillism

A wealthy woman getting ready

It is late afternoon

Stylistic Traits of My Original Art

Pointillism

The beach

Late in the afternoon

There are no people

Climate is near where I live

Conclusion

Some of the stylistic traits that I have similar to my artist were…

Pointillism

Attempt at texture

None or not that many faces are clear

Instead of oil paints on a canvas, I used acrylics

Some of my favorite pieces by him were the ocean scenes like Port en Bessin, so I did a scene with the ocean in it. I also made it as a view that is familiar to me. I tried to mimic a view from the Cliff Walk in Rhode Island because I have been there many times. Seurat did many paintings of places that he was typically near.

Conclusion

Making a pointillism piece was challenging because one is supposed to fill the entire canvas with dots and no open space. I was not very capable of doing that. However, a strength that I had was making the ocean or hill one color from far away and then seeing that there were many other colors when one got closer.

Seurat was a very unique artist. He was only alive for a short amount of time but he made his mark on the world by creating his own style of painting, which is why I admire him.