Parade de Cirque by Georges Seurat Poster

The Neo-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat (1859-1891) is best known for developing the Pointilist technique as shown in one of his most famous paintings, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte or Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte (1884). Born in Paris, Seurat took on board the scientific theories of color promulgated by Charles Blanc in 'Grammaire des arts du dessin' (1867) to develop Pointilism. This technique involves the placing of pure dots of color in such a way as to create a much greater whole, or range, in terms of brightness when looked at by the observer. It is amusing to note that the word was coined by the art critics of the 1880s as a derogatory term. La Parade de Cirque, or Circus Sideshow, was painted by Seurat between 1887 and 1888, based on drawings he had made of Fernand Corvi's traveling circus. It was first exhibited at the 1888 Salon des Indépendants in Paris. The work is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.