Georges-Pierre Seurat, like Impressionist painters before him, was very interested in painting light, and
studied optical theory to develop his painting technique. Known as pointillism, Seurats painting technique
involved building up an image by carefully placing small dots of color side by side. When viewed up close,
one is aware of the many small dots of varied color. When viewed from a distance, the dots fuse together to
create a coherent image. Artists like Seurat, who became known as Neo-Impressionists, believed that this
painstaking method of painting was the most scientific and precise way to record color and light.