#georgesseurat

“Moonlit Night”, (1864),

Port-en-Bessin Entrance to the Harbor, 1888, Georges Seurat

A Woman Fishing, Georges Seurat, 1884, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Drawings and Prints

Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1951; acquired from The Museum of Modern Art, Lillie P. Bliss Collection Size: 12 1/8 x 9 3/8 in. (30.8 x 23.8 cm) Medium: Conté crayon

Models (Poseuses) by Georges Seurat, The Barnes Foundation

Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia), Collection Gallery, Main Room, West Wall\n

Informed by scientific theories of light, color, and optics, Seurat methodically juxtaposed individual touches of pure color on his canvas. According to the artist, these hues mixed with greater vibrancy in the eye of the beholder.

Judith Dolkart, The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks

Medium: Oil on canvas

Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque), Georges Seurat, 1887–88, European Paintings

Bequest of Stephen C. Clark, 1960 Size: 39 1/4 x 59 in. (99.7 x 149.9 cm) Medium: Oil on canvas

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884, Georges Seurat, 1884, Art Institute of Chicago: European Painting and Sculpture

“Bedlam,” “scandal,” and “hilarity” were among the epithets used to describe what is now considered Georges Seurat’s greatest work, and one of the most remarkable paintings of the nineteenth century, when it was first exhibited in Paris. Seurat labored extensively over A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884, reworking the original as well as completing numerous preliminary drawings and oil sketches (the Art Institute has one such sketch and two drawings). With what resembles scientific precision, the artist tackled the issues of color, light, and form. Inspired by research in optical and color theory, he juxtaposed tiny dabs of colors that, through optical blending, form a single and, he believed, more brilliantly luminous hue. To make the experience of the painting even more intense, he surrounded the canvas with a frame of painted dashes and dots, which he, in turn, enclosed with a pure white wood frame, similar to the one with which the painting is exhibited today. The very immobility of the figures and the shadows they cast makes them forever silent and enigmatic. Like all great masterpieces, La Grande Jatte continues to fascinate and elude. Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection Size: 207.5 × 308.1 cm (81 3/4 × 121 1/4 in.) Medium: Oil on canvas

French artist Georges Seurat created this painting when he was only twenty-four years old. Seurat submitted the work to the Salon, but it was rejected by the jurors. Nevertheless, Bathers at Asnières became one of Seurat’s masterpieces, though did not gain appreciation until many years later after his death at the age of thirty-one.

In this painting, we see a pristine blue river with a couple of bathers in it. The Seine River is one of the most famous rivers in Europe, though it has been unsafe for swimming due to industrial pollution since at least the early 20th century.  Now, the city of Paris wants to clean it up enough to allow people to swim in some sections by 2024, the year the city is slated to host the next summer Olympic Games.

Perhaps, we might be able to see scenes like Seurat’s painting again one day.