Born in Paris into a wealthy family, Georges Seurat (1859 - 1891), supported by his mother, was introduced to painting by his maternal uncle. Initially a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he only discovered the world of the Impressionists in 1879 at their fourth exhibition. He applied to the Official Paris Salon, where his famous painting A Bathing at Asnières was not unanimously approved, due to its new pictorial approach, which was not in keeping with the Impressionist movement of the time. It was at the first Salon des Indépendants in 1884 that he met other artists who shared his vision of painting, notably Paul Signac. His work A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte particularly impressed him. The neo-impressionists, later called pointillists, were born. Seurat nevertheless won the last Impressionist Exhibition in 1886.

Seurat was determined to present himself as a competitor to Monet. Like the Impressionist painter, Seurat painted a series of landscapes that reflect his appreciation of Japanese art. Seurat's work, while more abstract than that of his Impressionist peers, is more symbolic and seeks to capture time and space. After creating six masterpieces of great value through his precise pointillist technique, Seurat died suddenly in 1891, a few weeks after Vincent Van Gogh. This marked the beginning of the second phase of the Neo-Impressionist movement, embodied by Paul Signac.