Georges Seurat 1859-1891
La Parade du Cirque or Circus Sideshow 1889

Georges Seurat was a Post-Impressionist painter and draftsman. Seurat is known for his innovative usage of drawing media and for inventing pointillism. Pointillism is defined as: building the image from separate small colored dots of paint. From a distance, the dots appear to merge and appear to be areas of shaded tones, but the colors maintain vibrancy from the juxtaposition of interconnected contrasting dots.

After a year of service at Brest Military Academy, Georges Seurat returned to Paris in 1880. For the next two years he devoted himself to mastering the art of black-and-white drawing. After his work was rejected by the Paris Salon, Seurat rejected establishments, and allied himself with independent artists in Paris. In 1884 he and other artists formed the Societe des Artistes Indépendants or Society of Independent Artists. He met fellow artist Paul Signac. Seurat shared his new ideas about pointillism with Signac, who then followed suit.

The circus theme was often portrayed in the 1880's: by artists such as Renoir, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. When the La parade du Cirque was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants. Seurat was attempting to create a constant connection between artistic creation and scientific analysis, a popular subject in the late 19th century.

His last four works have similar color schemes: they are dominated by muted yellows, pinks, and purples, as well reddish-browns and off-whites. Considering that the goal of Pointillism was to increase color intensity, it is somewhat ironic that Seurat never was able to use pointillism to recreate the vibrancy of color that he achieved in Bathers (which was created before Pointillism had been fully developed). In Circus Parade the audience sits in parallel horizontal lines that are in opposition with the performer, who stands leaning up and to the right. Seurat's scientific use of line is obvious. His scientific use of color is difficult to tell due to the use of muted colors.

Though the painting has details that exaggerate to the sense of alienation, i.e. poor spectators are standing in the back whilst the wealthier spectators sit in the front; the social mood is created by style. The color and line are very strong and deliberate. Close examination enables viewer to notice the intimate details. Seurat realized his initial success as an artist in conveying emotion and the social stratum through style as he did in earlier works like Bathers and Grande Jatte. After the success of Models, Seurat returned his focus to style rather than society and politics.
Seurat died in Paris on 29 March 1891. The exact cause of Seurat's death is disputed, and has been attributed to an infectious disease. His son died two weeks later from the same disease.