Stone Breaker, Le Raincy (Casseur de pierres, Le Raincy)

1878

From Lequien's school to the École des Beaux-Arts

Having begun at the École Municipale de Sculpture et Dessin run by the sculptor Justin Lequien near his family's home, in 1878 Seurat moves on to the École des Beaux-Arts, where he is taught by Henri Lehmann: he draws from casts of antique sculpture and copies drawings by old masters. His studies yield a well-considered and fertile theory of contrasts, to which all his later work is subjected.

November 1879 – 1880

A year of infantry service at Brest

In November 1879 Seurat leaves the École des Beaux-Arts for a year of military service: he undergoes infantry training with the 19th Line Regiment, stationed at Brest. In 1880 he returns to Paris.

1880–1882

A studio with Aman-Jean and two years of monochrome drawing

Back in Paris, Seurat shares a studio with his friend Aman-Jean while renting a small apartment at 16 rue de Chabrol; for the next two years he works at mastering the art of monochrome drawing and studies Eugène Delacroix carefully, making notes on his use of colour.

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).

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.