George Seurat is a French painter and the founder of Neo-Impressionism. He is well known for his pointillism works. His large work Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is one of the icons of 19th century painting. It shows people of all different classes in a park. The tiny juxtaposed dots of multi-colored paint allow the eye of the viewer to blend colors optically, rather than having the colors blended on the canvas or pre-blended as a material pigment. It took Seurat two years to complete this ten foot wide painting, and he spent much time in the park sketching to prepare for the work (there are about 60 studies). It is now exhibited in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. 
Another famous painting of Seurats is La Parade (1889) a painting in which the detail once again shows pointillism technique.
Instead of painting outlines and shapes with brush strokes and areas of color, pointillism builds up the image from seperate colored dots of paint. From a distance, the dots merge and appear to be areas of shaded tones, but the colors have an extra vibrancy from the juxtaposition of contrasting dots.
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