SEURAT, GEORGES (1859-91), French painter, of the Post-Impressionist movement. He was born in Paris on Dec. 2, 1859. At the age of 16 he entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts and worked four years under Henry Lehmann, a pupil of Ingres. He studied the old masters at the Louvre; and, being interested in the problems and theories about colour, read the works of Chevreul, Charles Blanc, Humbert de Superville, Helmholtz and Ogden N. Rood. He carefully analysed the works of Delacroix, and, as a result of these researches, established the law of con trast by complementary colours. During his military service at Brest, he made use of every opportunity to sketch on the quays. Then, on his return to Paris, he at first devoted himself to draw ing, seeking to apply to line and tone a law of contrast, analogous to that of complementary colours. In these drawings, done with black crayon on white Ingres paper, light and dark are con trasted in a harmonious scale of values, and the lines are rhyth mically arranged at right angles to one another. It was his prac tice to paint small sketches in oil in the neighbourhood of Paris, at Asnieres and on the Ile de la Grande Jatte on the Seine, near Neuilly. A sketch of boys bathing in the Seine led to the first of those large canvases, six in number, which, with a few smaller pictures, constitutes his work. The "Baignade" (now at the Tate gallery) was refused at the Salon of 1884, and was shown at the Salon des Independants, which was organized that year. Here Seurat made the acquaintance of Signac, who had been working on similar lines, and through him became acquainted with the Impressionist movement, whose existence he had ignored. Hence forth he adopted their technique of broken colour (see IM PRESSIONISM), but systematized their method. In 1886 he ex hibited "Un Dimanche a la Grande Jatte" (now in America), a carefully-organized composition, executed entirely in the "pointil list" technique, by which he attained an extraordinary luminosity. The paint was applied in detached specks, each colour and the exact space which it would occupy being planned in advance, a procedure characterized by some critics as the decline of art into scientific impersonality, while others hailed it as the rise of the artist from fumbling to exactitude. Seurat and Signac were
the pioneers of Pointillism, or Neoimpressionism, as it is some times called; other distinguished representatives of the move ment being Charles Argrand, Henri Edmond Cross, A. Dubois Pillet, Lucie Cousturier and Theo van Rysselberghe. Such artists as Camille Pissaro, Gauguin, van Gogh, Matisse, Derain and Metzinger experimented for a while on the same lines. But Seurat was not only a pointillist, he was also a great designer, and this quality in his art has only recently been "discovered." In a letter dated 1890 (published in English translation in Walter Pach's book) he set down his artistic creed. He affirmed that "Art is harmony," and explained how harmony is attained in tone, colour and line by the application of laws of contrast. His aim was to extricate from the manifold and confusing aspects of nature a harmonious and unified organization. His mind was intent on the abstract qualities of form and colour ; and therein it antici pated the movement which some 20 years later emphasized the essentiality of artistic design. 'The four great pictures which fol lowed were experiments on similar lines; "Les Poseuses" of 1888 were painted in a higher key; "La Parade" of 1889 displays an obvious geometrical composition. "Le Chahut" of the same year is distinguished for its rhythmic lines. Finally, his last work, "Le Cirque," shows his perfected style. The picture represents a scene in the circus; the design is full of swing, every detail clearly drawn and carefully considered. Soon after its exhibition in the Salon des Independants, Seurat died, on March 29, 1891.
See Paul Signac, D'Eugene Delacroix au Neo-bnpressionnisme (r911) ; Lucie Cousturier, Seurat (1921) ; Walter Pach, Seurat (New York, 1923) ; Gustave Coquiot, Seurat (1924). (I. A. R.)