Georges Seurat, French painter receives doodle from Google on 162nd birthday

Happy Birthday Georges Pierre Seurat!!

Google today dedicates an artistic doodle to Georges Pierre Seurat, a French post-Impressionist artist on his 162nd birthday. He is remembered for beautifully capturing the natural qualities of light in scenes of contemporary Parisian life with his signature painting techniques known as Pointillism and Divisionism.

The conté crayon drawings of Georges Pierre Seurat have earned a great deal of critical appreciation. His artistic personality combined qualities that are usually thought of as opposed and incompatible.

Georges Seurat was born on December 2, 1859 in Paris. He began formal artistic training as a teenager and furthered his education at the prestigious fine arts institution École des Beaux-Arts in 1878. He developed dived into the scientific study of color theory and optical physics to develop an original style he coined ‘chromo-luminarism,’ later known as Pointillism or Divisionism.

Georges Seurat initially studied art at the École Municipale de Sculpture et Dessin, near his family's home in the boulevard Magenta, which was run by the sculptor Justin Lequien. He was taught by Henri Lehmann, a German-born French historical painter after moving on to the École des Beaux-Arts.

Georges Seurat’s monumental work a large canvas titled ‘Bathers at Asnières’ shows young men relaxing by the Seine in a working-class suburb of Paris. This was his first major painting. His painting shows continuing impact of his neoclassical training, the critic Paul Alexis (French novelist and dramatist) described it as a ‘faux Puvis de Chavannes’.

Georges Seurat’s painting ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’ shows members of each of the social classes participating in various park activities. He took two years to complete this 10-ft wide painting. The tiny juxtaposed dots of multi-colored paint allow the viewer's eye to blend colors optically, rather than having the colors physically blended on the canvas. It is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City.

Georges Seurat was in a relationship with Madeleine Knobloch but he didn’t reveal it earlier. He portrayed her in his painting ‘Jeune femme se poudrant’. When she became pregnant, they moved to a studio at 39 passage de l'Élysée-des-Beaux-Arts (now rue André Antoine). There she gave birth to their son, who was named Pierre-Georges.

Georges Seurat’s obsession with color theory has prompted some art historians to hypothesize that his techniques were influenced by the atmospheric effects of the volcanic eruptions that created some of the most colorful sunsets recorded during the 1800s.

The monumental work of Georges Seurat has inspired countless artists across disciplines, a Broadway musical, and has even been featured in a blockbuster film. Unfortunately, Georges Seurat died at the age of 31 on March 29, 1891. At the time of his death, Madeleine Knobloch was pregnant with a second child who died during or shortly after birth.

Today Google honors the great French painter on his 162nd birthday.

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