Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 2: Modern Era (1850–1949)
1884
Seurat Kicks of Post-Impressionism with Pointilism
Seurat begins his best-known painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, completed in 1886. This seminal work of Post-Impressionism is known for its innovative use of pointillism, “a highly systematic and scientific technique based on the hypothesis that closely positioned points of pure color mix together in the viewer’s eye.” It also exemplifies the movement’s interest in depicting people from different social classes’ everyday life through a modern, formalist lens.
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
People
Movements
Post-Impressionism
Filed under
- Ideas
- color, everyday life, formalism, perception, Post-Impressionism, science, social class
- Technologies
- optical mixing, pointillism
- People
- Georges Seurat
- Works
- A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Echoes across time
- 1972 · Grenzgebiete der bildenden Kunst (Frontiers of Fine Arts) Exhibit at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
- 1984 · Chromas by Edward Zajec
- 1982 · L’Art et l’ordinateur in Paris
Le Random editorials
Le Random podcast
- Timeline Ch 2—Modern Era with Kate Vass — listen with transcript on Le Random (20 Jul 2023, 58 min). Chapter 2’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify