Georges Seurat earned a reputation as one of the most highly esteemed draftsmen of the Independent painters. He exhibited his dark and moody Conté-crayon drawings in a number of prominent venues during his brief career, including the final Impressionist exhibition in 1886. A preparatory study for a painting rather than a finished work in its own right, his ethereal lineup of circus performers materializes out of the regular texture of the laid paper. The texture functions as a fine unifying screen, a graphic equivalent to the artist's pointillist painting technique.