Qwiz5 Quizbowl Essentials: Georges Seurat

Georges Seurat was a late 19th century French Post-Impressionist painter. He is best known for his technique of Pointillism, which is exemplified in his Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

By analyzing questions, you can see patterns emerge - patterns that will help you answer more tossups. Qwiz5 is all about those patterns. In each installment of Qwiz5, we take an answer line and look at its five most common clues. Here we explore five clues that will help you answer a tossup on Georges Seurat

POINTILLISM

Pointillism is the technique employed by Seurat in which he painted with thousands of “dots” of color. Other terms for this technique include Divisionism, Neo-Impressionism, and Chromoluminarism.

PAUL SIGNAC

Paul Signac is the co-founder of Pointillism. He is best known for his portraits of Felix Feneon, an art critic who wrote extensively about the movement.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON ON THE ISLAND OF LA GRANDE JATTE

The best known Seurat painting, Sunday Afternoon... depicts Parisian leisure-seekers on an island in the Seine River. Prominent figures in the painting include a man in a red shirt reclining while smoking a pipe and a woman with a parasol holding a monkey on a leash. The painting is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago.

BATHERS AT ASNIERES

Another well-known painting by Seurat, also depicting Parisians relaxing on the banks of the Seine (though the opposite bank from the one seen in Sunday Afternoon…

CIRCUS

Seurat painted several scenes from circuses. His best-known, titled simply The Circus, features a woman standing atop a galloping horse.

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Quizbowl is about learning, not rote memorization, so we encourage you to use this as a springboard for further reading rather than as an endpoint. Here are a few things to check out:

* You can view 174 Seurat paintings in high resolution here.

* Daily Art magazine published an article on Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte here.

* Here's a short documentary about Seurat and his work:

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