Georges Seurat

Georges Seurat

While the paintings and drawings of Georges Seurat might seem to belong to different worlds, the profound knowledge of color that pulsates in his canvases had already found reflection in his earlier black and white drawings. To create most of his drawings, Seurat chose Michallet, a hand-made paper characterized by its irregularities, a heavy texture, and minute undulations, on which the passage of the Conté crayon produced a variety of results.

Seurat made hundreds of drawings during his brief artistic career. They bear witness to his evolution toward his characteristic mastery in the creation of effects, for which he used the particularities of his materials. In this selection, we can observe his progress along the path of experimentation until he came to occupy a unique place in the art of drawing.

Anything was apt to be captured by Seurat’s hand and Conté crayon. During his training, he first exercised by working from life and reproducing works by the old masters, and later concentrated on his immediate surroundings, focusing on everyday motifs and other subjects. It seems that subject and object were of less importance to Seurat than experimenting with how to trap chiaroscuros on paper or create volumes free of containment by the traditional line.