Georges Seurat: The Journey of an Independent Artist

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Georges Seurat was born into a rich family in Paris, France in 1859. He had a mother and a father, but his father was often away because of work so he was raised mostly by his mother. Seurat also had an older brother and an older sister.
Seurat received his first art lessons from his uncle, and began formal art education at a local art school around 1875. He moved on to enrollment at the famous art school École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1878, where he mostly copied paintings by the masters. However, he felt that it was too strict, and left in 1879. He then joined a military academy for a year. When he returned, he continued to create art, and shared a small studio with his friend Aman-Jean, where he worked on mastering drawing in monochrome for two years.
Seurat exhibited a drawing of Aman-Jean in a major art exhibition contest called the Paris Salon for the first time in 1883. He then created his most important painting yet called Bathers at Asnières, but it was rejected from the Salon. He showcased it again at Groupe des Artistes Indépendants, but he and along with other artists that he had met there disliked the exhibition, so they joined together and created the Société des Artistes Indépendants, an art exhibition for independant artists that was unjuried. …show more content…

He was very important in the art world because he furthered Impressionism in its early stages, and is known as the father of pointillism, a type of Impressionism that he created. He also influenced future artists with his work, such as Vincent van Gogh.
Pointillism shows a realistic depiction of light, shadows, and the way that light affects objects. His most famous piece, “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” was a prime example of this. It is oil on canvas, 6 feet 10 inches in height, and 10 feet 1 inch in width and took two years to make, as he worked on it between 1884 and 1886. However, Seurat added a border of red, orange, and blue dots, after it was completed, in

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