This page forms part of a series of pages dedicated to the many artists who worked in Honfleur. A full list of all the artists with a link to their works can be found at the bottom of this page.
Georges Pierre Seurat (1859 – 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough surface.
Seurat’s artistic personality combined qualities that are usually thought of as opposed and incompatible: on the one hand, his extreme and delicate sensibility, on the other, a passion for logical abstraction and an almost mathematical precision of mind. His large-scale work A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1886) altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-Impressionism, and is one of the icons of late 19th-century painting.
His father, Antoine Chrysostome Seurat, originally from Champagne, was a former legal official who had become wealthy from speculating in property, and his mother, Ernestine Faivre, was from Paris. Georges had a brother, Emile Augustin, and a sister, Marie-Berthe, both older. His father lived in Le Raincy and visited his wife and children once a week at boulevard de Magenta.
Georges Seurat first studied art at the Ecole Municipale de Sculpture et Dessin, near his family’s home in the boulevard Magenta, which was run by the sculptor Justin Lequien. In 1878, he moved on to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he was taught by Henri Lehmann, and followed a conventional academic training, drawing from casts of antique sculpture and copying drawings by old masters.
Where the dialectic nature of Paul Cezanne’s work had been greatly influential during the highly expressionistic phase of proto-Cubism, between 1908 and 1910, the work of Seurat, with its flatter, more linear structures, would capture the attention of the Cubists from 1911. Seurat in his few years of activity, was able, with his observations on irradiation and the effects of contrast, to create afresh without any guiding tradition, to complete an esthetic system with a new technical method perfectly adapted to its expression.
Click here to read George Seurat’s full bio on Wikipedia.
NOTE: Click on any image below for a bigger version (no new window will open).
NOTE: A black box like this one, means that there is an explanation text about today’s situation of the painting above it.
NOTE: Click on this photo icon 
anywhere below a painting to see a photo of what the area looks like today.
NOTE: A blue box like this one, means there is an explanation or a note.
NOTE: The Butin Beach is Honfleur’s main beach. It’s wide, long and it has white sand.
NOTE: The lighthouse of the hospital seems to have been moved more inland (click on photo icon above)
TODAY: The Port Entry Lighthouse still stands today, except it is no longer the entry. The entry is done via locks closer to the sea.
Seurat painted mostly in the Paris region, but he did work in some parts of France as well. Here are the places he painted in (a link “⇠” to his works will appear when published):
Honfleur was (and is) a very picturesque town, so it saw many artists capturing the beauty of this very scenic town. The reason it has so many tourists is obvious…. it’s very pretty. Here are some of the artists that have come to apply their art in the town (a link, symbolized by a “⇠“, to the artist’s works will appear when published. A “*” indicates that the artist did not work directly in Honfleur but instead worked outside of Honfleur in a nearby town).
- 🇺🇸 Boggs, Frank Myers ⇠
- 🇷🇺 Bogolyubov, Alexey (Alexei) ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Bonington, Richard Parkes ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Boudin, Eugene-Louis ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Braque, Georges ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Bruce, Mary Louisa, Countess of Elgin and Kincardine ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Bruelle, Gaston ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Burel, Henry E. ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Burgess Jr, John ⇠
- 🇺🇸 Butler, Theodore Earl ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Callow, William ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Cooke, Edward William ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Corot, Jean-Baptiste Camille ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Courbet, Gustave ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Cyr, Georges Albert ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Daubigny, Charles-Francois ⇠
- 🇫🇷 de Saint-Delis, Henri ⇠
- 🇫🇷 de Saint-Delis, Rene ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Dibdin, Thomas Colman ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Dubourg, Louis-Alexandre ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Dufy, Jean ⇠
- 🇮🇪 Dunlop, Ronald Ossory ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Friesz, Othon ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Garneray, Ambroise Louis ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Gernez, Paul-Elie ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Goeneutte, Norbert ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Gudin, Theodore ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Guerard, Henri ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Hervier, Louis Adolphe ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Huet, Paul ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Isabey, Eugene ⇠
- 🇳🇱 Jongkind, Johan ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Kay, James ⇠
- 🇳🇱 Kickert, Conrad Theodore ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Le Gray, Gustave ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Le Sidaner, Henri ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Lebourg, Albert ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Lee-Hankey, William ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Leprince, Auguste-Xavier ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Luce, Maximilien ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Maclet, Elisee ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Madelain, Gustave ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Manzana-Pissarro, Georges Henri ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Marquet, Albert ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Mathon, Emile Louis ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Monet, Claude ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Mozin, Charles Louis ⇠
- 🇺🇸 Norton, William Edward ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Parrott, William ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Pecrus, Charles Francois ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Petitjean, Edmond Marie ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Roullet, Gaston ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Schafer, Henry Thomas ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Seurat, Georges ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Signac, Paul ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Stanfield, Clarkson Frederick ⇠
- 🇧🇪 Stevens, Alfred ⇠
- 🇳🇱 Ten Cate, Siebe Johannes ⇠
- 🇧🇪 Timmermans, Louis-Etienne ⇠
- 🇫🇷 Truffaut, Fernand-Fortune ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Turner, William ⇠
- 🇨🇭 Vallotton, Felix ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Wadsworth, Edward ⇠
- 🇬🇧 Webb, James ⇠
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