Seurat and His Technique

Upon observing Seurat's artwork, I couldn't help but notice how analogous his brushwork and style of painting are to modern day's digital-everything. The multitude of colorful dots meshing together smoothly to form a picture seems awfully similar to the million colorful dots that create the TV screen or laptop screen nowdays. It doesn't seem anything out of the ordinary to us now for an image on the TV screen to look smooth and clear, but to think that a handmade image of dots can generate something that feels so natural and smooth seems extraordinary. There seems to be a bewildering impossibility in the idea of using countless dots to depict a scene or an object that looks so smooth, generating the "light-dark continuum" as the art historian Bernd Growe described it. But there is something about Seurat's paintings (or are they really "paintings" by traditional definitions?) that embodies clarity and a comfortable level of definition, and at the same time produces luminousity and soft fuzziness. It is like a paradoxical juxtaposition of ideas.
Some critics apparently thought that his work was empty of emotion and expression; they called his work mechanical. This is the similar line of argument concerning Renaissance perspectivalism painters, who concerned themselves with accurate and scientific representations of space, depth and perspective. Saying that Seurat's work is mechanical and is of less artistic value is like criticizing Renaissance perspectivalism paintings for their primary focus on scientific accuracy in representation of space, depth and perspective (we've already had this discussion), and therefore a lack of artistic quality and creativity in their artworks. On the contrary, Seurat's pointillism style displays his creativity, amazing control, patience, which spell out genius. Afterall, this style that Seurat invented and perfected was unprecedented in all of history of art. Also, having the control of the hand and the brush, and the patience to fill canvases larger than 10 feet across is almost godly. There is also great beauty in the simplicity of Seurat's technique; breaking something complex and real down to the most basic geometric elements, the circles or the dots, and putting them back together to construct something so mesmerizing. There is plenty of expression in his artwork; in any case Seurat is classified as a NeoIMPRESSIONIST painter, and maintained the core Impressionist idea of valuing personal experience and expression in response to everyday life. Seurat's originality, artistry, control and patience put into his paintings can only be explained by his genius.