For this assignment I wanted to compare and
contrast Georges Seurat, a talented drawer, and Jacob Lawrence, a man who
excelled in painting. I chose these two artist because they seem to having
nothing in common, but they both used their surroundings to create beautiful
pieces of art.
Georges Seurat lived in France
during the late 1800’s and is famous when discussing conté crayon drawings. He
used conté crayons to, “approximate the effect of color dots in paint” (150).
Seurat drew inspiration for his drawings from the nightlife and entertainment
he was surrounded by. Going to such an events was considered very aristocratic,
but artist flocked to them to witness the lighting effects and dramatic
performances. In his drawing entitled, Café-concert he brings out a very eerie
side to the normally colorful performances. You can hardly make out the
performer in the drawings, but you can perfectly see the dark silhouettes of
the audience. He creates an eerie affect in many of his drawings and that’s
what I like most about his work.
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Georges Seurat. The Artist’s Mother. 1883.
Crayon
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Georges Seurat.. The Black Bow. Crayon
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Georges Seurat. Café-concert. 1887-1888. Conté Crayon heightened with chalk
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Jacob Lawrence was an artist who grew up in Harlem
during the Harlem renaissance. Lawrence had a difficult up brining, but found
solace in the public library, the Harlem Art Workshop, and the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Like Seurat, Lawrence gathered inspiration from the events
happening around him, but the occurrences surrounding his daily life were far
less fabulous than the performances and bright lights of France.
The themes found in Lawrence’s
paintings stem from the violence and hardship he was witnessing while living in
the ghetto. Seurat takes this extraordinary aristocratic life style and darkens
it by only using black and white in his paintings, while Lawrence takes all the
brutality surrounding his life and uses bright colors to depicts the terrible
things happening around him. I wonder if this because of the differences in
culture and time period or it was their on perception of the world. Seurat and
Lawrence came from very different places and cultures, but I think it is
interesting how they drew inspiration from their surroundings and how they
choose to depict them using different mediums and colors.
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Jacob Lawrence. Home Chores. 1945.
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Jacob Lawrence. Vaudeville. 1951.
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Jacob Lawrence. Self Portrait. 1977. Gouache on paper
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