by Diptiman Sengupta
This guest post is by Diptiman Sengupta. Diptiman is an amateur artist of modern times practicing art as an avenue to vent out the subconscious. He likes to portray his thoughts occasionally through his paintings, sketches or abstract forms, whatever suits the mood. In a way his inspiration comes from the Great Artists like Rembrandt, Turner, Seurat, Monnet, Whistler, Durer to name a few. Every painting of his is of a different genre, trying to experiment upon a different style.
This guest post is by Diptiman Sengupta. Diptiman is an amateur artist of modern times practicing art as an avenue to vent out the subconscious. He likes to portray his thoughts occasionally through his paintings, sketches or abstract forms, whatever suits the mood. In a way his inspiration comes from the Great Artists like Rembrandt, Turner, Seurat, Monnet, Whistler, Durer to name a few. Every painting of his is of a different genre, trying to experiment upon a different style.
Pointillism, just as it sounds, is a style of art using only dots. French Artist Georges Seurat (2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891), was the founder of this movement in the 1880s.
The technique behind
When viewed from a distance the eye blends the dots, in a process called optical bending. Even though no orange paint was used, red and yellow create the effect.
The technique behind
When viewed from a distance the eye blends the dots, in a process called optical bending. Even though no orange paint was used, red and yellow create the effect.

The emerging picture
Seurat set up the ten-foot canvas in his small studio in the Boulevard de Clichy. Working from a step-ladder he painted over a speckled base, and patiently built up small areas of the picture at a time. The blobs of color on his palette were laid out in the exact order of the spectrum. Seurat began as a more traditional painter and later developed Pointillism.
Scientific background and influences
During the 19th century, scientist-writers such as Michel Eugène Chevreul, Ogden Rood and David Sutter wrote treatises on color, optical effects and perception. They were able to translate the scientific research of Helmholtz and Newton into a written form that was understandable by non-scientists. Chevreul was perhaps the most important influence on artists at the time; his great contribution was producing a color wheel of primary and intermediary hues.
Chevreul was a French chemist who restored old tapestries. During his restorations of tapestries he noticed that the only way to restore a section properly was to take into account the influence of the colors around the missing wool; he could not produce the right hue unless he recognized the surrounding dyes. Chevreul discovered that two colors juxtaposed, slightly overlapping or very close together, would have the effect of another color when seen from a distance. The discovery of this phenomenon became the basis for the Pointillist technique of the Neoimpressionist painters.
Seurat set up the ten-foot canvas in his small studio in the Boulevard de Clichy. Working from a step-ladder he painted over a speckled base, and patiently built up small areas of the picture at a time. The blobs of color on his palette were laid out in the exact order of the spectrum. Seurat began as a more traditional painter and later developed Pointillism.
Scientific background and influences
During the 19th century, scientist-writers such as Michel Eugène Chevreul, Ogden Rood and David Sutter wrote treatises on color, optical effects and perception. They were able to translate the scientific research of Helmholtz and Newton into a written form that was understandable by non-scientists. Chevreul was perhaps the most important influence on artists at the time; his great contribution was producing a color wheel of primary and intermediary hues.
Chevreul was a French chemist who restored old tapestries. During his restorations of tapestries he noticed that the only way to restore a section properly was to take into account the influence of the colors around the missing wool; he could not produce the right hue unless he recognized the surrounding dyes. Chevreul discovered that two colors juxtaposed, slightly overlapping or very close together, would have the effect of another color when seen from a distance. The discovery of this phenomenon became the basis for the Pointillist technique of the Neoimpressionist painters.
His Works
Pointillism, required so much patience, his most famous piece took two years!
Pointillism, required so much patience, his most famous piece took two years!
Seurat made over 3 million dots in this piece (3,456,000 dots one at a time!). In the summer of 1884 Seurat began to work on this masterpiece of his, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
Later he moved from the Boulevard de Clichy to a quieter studio nearby, where he lived secretly with a young model, Madeleine Knobloch, whom he portrayed in his painting "Jeune femme se poudrant."
Later he moved from the Boulevard de Clichy to a quieter studio nearby, where he lived secretly with a young model, Madeleine Knobloch, whom he portrayed in his painting "Jeune femme se poudrant."
In February 1890 she gave birth to his son, who was given the first name of Pierre Georges. It was not until two days before Seurat's death that he introduced his young family to his parents. Seurat died in Paris on 29 March 1891 at the young age of 31 only. The cause of Seurat's death is uncertain, and has been attributed to a form of meningitis, pneumonia, infectious angina, and/or (most probably) diphtheria. His son died two weeks later from the same disease. His last ambitious work, The Circus, was left unfinished at the time of his death.