Georges Surat (1859-1891) was a French post-impressionistic artist that made great advances in the art world. From utilizing science in his art to founding a new art movement, he is nothing short of iconic.
Surat learned art the traditional way, studying at the École Municipale de Sculpture et Dessin and the École des Beaux-Arts before doing military service for a year. Upon returning he worked with conté and monochrome drawings before moving on to other things.
Surat was interested in the relationship between art and science, reading several texts of perception, colour, form and line. Inspired by Michel-Eugène Chevreul’s work in colour theory, he applied his learnings to his paintings. He would paint compositions entirely of pure coloured dots instead of mixing colours together. He stated that the eye would mix the coloured dots together and form a full image from far. This technique he developed was called divisionism, or pointillism.
I’ve encountered Surat’s works many times in the past, especially in elementary school where I would have to create works in pointillism for art projects. His paintings were always shown in examples, but his name was never mentioned, so I never connected a name to his works until now. Although Surat is famously known for his pointillism works, I discovered (through Wikipedia) that he has done many works in conté as well, which I personally like better. Something about them feels so.. contemporary?? I really like how soft they are and there are no harsh lines at all.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Seurat
www.britannica.com/biography/Georges-Seurat
www.artnet.com/artists/georges-seurat/
www.georgesseurat.org/the-complete-works.html?pageno=1