Georges Seurat was a French post-impressionist painter and draftsman who was especially known due to his innovative use of drawing media. I am particularly interested in his figure work. After looking at a broad range of his work, I feel like there is very little theme involved in the idea behind particular poses or subjects, but rather he thought of it more of a study of figures and anatomy. In other words, he thought less of his work as art and more of it as a craft, as he was a draughtsman after all. He was also quoted saying; 'some say they see poetry in my paintings, I see only science'.
He uses an interesting mix of materials within his figure work, and some of his work was even made using crayons to give a rough and loose yet textured image, with a concentration on form and shape. Working in this way also meant that shadows could be easily incorporated given the black and white nature of some of his work. Some things to mention about his work, is that firstly it is very calm and almost structured, the poses feel very delicate and natural and aren't forced to produce poses with a lot of dynamic or action. His style is also very experimental and I suppose stylised in that it has a very scratchy tone to it. Despite the textured and scratchy nature of his work, especially that made by a crayon, the form and shape of the figure is evident in his work and this intricate attention to the human body is evident throughout all of his work, painting and drawings alike. Finally, the use of light in his drawings is also very seamless. The tones are very subtle on the shadowed out sections of figures faces, as if they were built up using layer upon layer of lightly applied marks. There is however a very methodical and impressive level of accuracy that you can see in his work through his use of shape to represent the human form and its interaction with light.
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