The Circus

1880s

Charles Henry's lectures at the Sorbonne

In the 1880s Seurat hears lectures by the mathematician Charles Henry at the Sorbonne on the emotional properties and symbolic meaning of lines and colour; there remains controversy over how far he adopted Henry's ideas.

1880s

The colour theorists: Chevreul, Rood, Blanc

Seurat finds the idea of separate strokes of pure colour that blend optically in the viewer's eye in “Modern Chromatics” (1879) by the American physicist Ogden Rood and in the chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul's work on the law of simultaneous contrast of colours; according to his friends, his bedside book is Charles Blanc's “Grammaire des arts du dessin” (1867).

1889

Madeleine Knobloch moves into Seurat's studio

Seurat conceals his relationship with the artist's model Madeleine Knobloch (1868–1903); in 1889 she moves in with him in his studio on the seventh floor of 128 bis boulevard de Clichy.

16 February 1890

The birth of his son Pierre-Georges

When Madeleine becomes pregnant the couple move to a studio at 39 passage de l'Élysée-des-Beaux-Arts (now rue André Antoine), where on 16 February 1890 she gives birth to their son, who is named Pierre-Georges.

29 March 1891

Death at thirty-one: the cause remains uncertain

Seurat dies in his parents' home in Paris at the age of 31; the cause of death is uncertain and has been variously attributed to a form of meningitis, pneumonia, infectious angina and diphtheria. His son dies two weeks later from the same disease.

29. marts 1891

Died