Seurat, Georges

A line can represent the edge of something. In the case of a work by Georges Seurat, the edge of a set of dots represents a line. A line can be used to separate one area from another. Line is used to communicate information in many ways. We write our names or a note to a friend using line. Artists draw with pencil, pen, and paint, using lines to form objects and express ideas. Line does not exist in nature it is an invention, an abstraction developed to represent what we see and what we want to communicate. The eye interprets line when it is actually the edge of the viewed object. 

Any work by Rembrandt van Rijn, seventeenth century Any work by Jan Vermeer, seventeenth century Death of Marat, Jacques-Louis David, 1793 The Bathers, Georges Seurat, 1883-1884 Anxiety, Edvard Munch, 1896... 

Pointillism Method of oil painting with numerous small dots of two or more pure colours which, at a distance, produce the effect of mixed colour. Technique pioneered by the French Impressionist painter Georges Seurat. 

The painting "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat illustrates the Impressionist style. 

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