Seurat studied painting and drawing at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His conte crayon drawings are also masterpieces of dark and light with form rather than line, being the expressive content of his drawings.
The Neo-Impressionist style, also called Pointillism, was Seurat's greatest achievement and contribution to art. He replaced the broad, irregular brushstrokes of the Impressionists with small carefully placed dots of pure color, designed to fuse in the beholder's eye to produce the effect of colors with subtle gradations of hue and tone. His scientific color theory and experiments with the optical illusion of color mixing by the eye influenced many of the artists of the Post-Impressionist era.
