Seurat, Georges Pierre

French artist. One of the major post-Impressionists, he originated, with Paul Signac, the technique of pointillism (painting with small dabs rather than long brushstrokes). One of his best-known works is A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte 1886 (Art Institute of Chicago).

At the age of 16 Seurat went to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, showing a remarkable early proficiency in figure drawing. Artists whose work he studied closely were Delacroix, whose frescoes at St Sulpice made him realize the significance of colour; and Piero della Francesca, whose sense of formal and geometrical beauty he shared.

Although fascinated by the Impressionists' use of colour, he rejected what he considered to be their lack of form, and sought to create a perfectly ordered art based on scientific principles. His pointillism was based on scientific research on the perception of colour. One of the first major results of his new art was his Bathers at Asnières (1884; National Gallery, London), which combines the atmospheric effect of Impressionist painting with a new solidity of form and composition.

As a draughtsman Seurat was no less exceptional than as a painter and his drawings, executed with conté crayon on rough paper, convey a remarkable richness of light and shade.