Georges Seurat: Great Art Explained

At the end of the 19th century, at the height of the Industrial Revolution,

science was making major breakthroughs in colour.

New pigments were invented almost every day,

and new colour theories were being published in scientific journals.

It was mainly thanks to the ever-growing textile industry

and the Public's craving for the latest new thing.

This all had a knock-on effect on fine art.

Georges Seurat spent most of his adult life thinking about colour.

Studying theories and working out systematically how one colour placed in a series of

dots next to those of another,

creates a whole different colour when it hits the retina of the human eye.

How one colour can make another appear luminous bright and vibrant.

Georges Seurat believed in the scientific rules of painting

and by the time of a Sunday on La Grand Jatte,

he made sure we saw colour exactly how he wanted us to.

Georges Seurat died at the age of 31 but in his short life,

he changed the direction of Modern Art, invented a movement,

and became one of the icons of late 19th century painting.

He was born in Paris in 1859 to wealthy parents.

His father was a retired civil servant who made a fortune in property speculation.

He was a distant man, emotionally and literally.

He didn't live with his family

but rather in his own home in the suburbs where he led a solitary

and secretive life - apart from every Tuesday evening

when he would arrive at the family apartment,

have dinner with them in silence,

and then catch the train back to the suburbs.

Seurat inherited his father's distant and secretive Behavior,

as well as his desire for isolation.

Like his father, Georges would also lead a double life.

Even after he left the family home,

he would arrive there every evening and have supper with his mother,

after which he too would leave and catch the train home.

To all intents and purposes, the painter Georges was a respectable Bourgeois gentleman.

But the day before he died at the family home it was revealed

that he was living with a working-class mistress,

with whom he had a son.

And nobody - not even his closest friends knew.

Seurat had a lifelong need to separate, contain, and divide.

He was a silent,

impenetrable man with a mathematical precision of mind and an obsession with Order.

Perfect qualities for the inventor of Pointillism.

In 1878 at the age of 18,

he was accepted to the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

But found the teaching methods outdated.

The impressionists meanwhile, were sending shock waves around Paris,

and a visit to the fourth impressionist exhibition of 1879 impressed the artist

so greatly that he decided to quit the Beaux-Arts Academy.

For now he was determined to find his own way, and for him,

that meant colour - which had been ignored by his teachers.

While still a student he briefly assisted Pierre Puvee de Chavannes,

who was working on this painting,

which would be compared to La Grand Jatte not only for its design -

with a body of water on the left,

statute-like characters, a slanting foreground and a backdrop of trees,

but also in the way it points to classical art in its carefully balanced

compositions stilted poses and style.

Seurat's painting would update the sacred grove

and show us what it might look like in 1884.

He embraced Modern Life as a subject but was not interested in painting outside,

or even spontaneity, and he would meticulously plan his pictures.

He was more interested in his colour theories

and harmonious composition than he was in the subject matter.

A striking contrast to the Impressionists.

In a letter Seurat once revealed

that he had been interested in finding an optical formula for painting since he

was just 17 years old.

He studied the paintings of Eugène Delacroix,

who had developed his own theories of contrasting or complementary colours.

I t was at the Beaux-Arts library

that Seurat discovered the theories of Michel Eugene Chevreul,

a chemist who restored tapestries.

A theory that was to be crucial to the intellectual basis for Seurat's painting.

when Chevreul investigated the apparent dullness of certain dyes,

he discovered that the problem was not with the dyes themselves,

but with the colours placed alongside them.

He realised that the perception of a particular colour is influenced by the surrounding

colours near it.

To illustrate this we can use this example.

The small brown square is exactly the same colour but appears as different shades,

depending on the colours surrounding it. one of Chevreul's achievements was "The colour wheel"

which shows complementary colours.

These are two colours

that are opposite to each other on the wheel - like red

and green.

Chevreul realised that if you place two complementary colours next to one another,

then the red appears redder and the green appears Greener - more vibrant and luminous.

Other artists, including van Gogh were investigating colour theory.

Van Gogh also experimented with pointillism.

And we see colour theory principles throughout La Grand Jatte.

Seurat believed that colour, seen as small adjacent dots of pure pigment,

were more alive than traditional mixtures of tints stirred together on the palette.

This would be the basis for what Seurat called Divisionism

and what we call pointillism.

The artist painted La Grand Jatte in three different periods:

He started in May 1884, when he used no dots,

but rather painted with dashes - vertical for trees and horizontal for the water.

This took him a year.

He then developed his colour theories further,

came back to the painting in 1885

and added hundreds of thousands of small dots of complementary colours,

on top of what he'd already done.

Which appear as solid

and luminous forms when seen from a distance This stage took him another whole

year.

It was an incredible and laborious undertaking.

The third phase was

when he re-stretched the canvas

and added a colored border to complement the painting.

Seurat was only 25 when he finished La Grand Jatte.

He had meticulously planned the painting with at least 30 oil sketches,

28 Preparatory drawings, and three canvases (that we know of).

He went to the island every day for months,

making sketches and then completed the painting in his Studio over two years.

The canvas is enormous, and at two meters by three meters,

barely fit into his Studio.

At first he focused on the landscape of the park,

which he saw as a stage ready for the placement of his "actors",

and through x-rays we know he changed their position many times.

He was more interested in the people

as shapes to be positioned

and balanced rather than individuals.

This is reiterated by the almost complete lack of feet,

as if the characters are floating - or on pedestals.

It is the ultimate construction - the grass is perfect,

the people are not eating or drinking, no picnic campers,

and despite the island being full of cafes, boatyards, and private residences,

he has erased all the Clutter.

There are noisy elements in the painting: A man plays the bugle, dogs bark,

and a lone child plays, but the overall feeling is "silence".

It is a frozen moment, as if the world has stopped.

Nobody is communicating, even those in pairs.

At first glance La Grand Jatte is a conventional image.

The accepted 20th century view of La Grand Jatte,

is that it is a hotbed of prostitution,

and not a summer Promenade of the bourgeoisie.

It's one interpretation of many.

This woman here for example,

is often referred to by modern writers as a "Coquette" or a kept woman,

promenading with her lover.

It's possible but nobody - including Seurat

or his friends wrote about it - even in private letters at the time.

In fact, in earlier studies she is shown alone.

Her pet monkey has been interpreted as a symbol of lust,

but again no evidence.

And x-rays show us it was a late addition.

This figure is often said to be a prostitute, as she is fishing,

due to the French term for fishing (Pêcher) sounding similar to the French word

for sin (Pecher),

but again not discussed at the time.

There is absolutely no hint of sexuality

that you'd expect in an image of a prostitute,

and Seurat didn't shy away from sex.

Both figures are dressed like respectable middle class women.

This little girl here, is the only character looking out to the viewer.

She is the embodiment of innocence,

and makes one doubt that this is a place of salacious encounters.

She is the only part of the painting that doesn't have any dots,

which makes her glow.

And her placement at the dead centre,

reflects the white at the centre of the recently created colour wheel possibly referencing

colour theory.

It's an image you can read in so many ways,

extremely familiar but equally elusive.

Another way to look at it,

is as a parody of the rise of the Petit Bourgeoisie,

the upwardly mobile class of white collar workers,

who for the first time in history could afford Leisure Time.

The Petit Bourgeoisie was created by the Industrial Revolution, and the size, wealth,

and political dominance of this group was growing steadily.

The lower middle classes had more disposable income,

and could afford ready-made High Fashions to compete with

(and blend in with) Society women.

The Press was full of caricatures of this class promenading in their "silly" fashions,

like the bustle, the top hat, the monocle, and pet monkeys.

And Seurat does seem to be mocking the pretentiousness of their stiff

and uniform Fashions.

Class is on display here - this woman is working-class.

A Nurse with her patient,

and wears the traditional uniform of a hat and attached red ribbon.

Friends called this working-class character a canoeist or a Boatman,

and his features are more rugged than the others.

All of these are valid interpretations

but I would say meaning is not

so important in this work.

It is an open-ended image of the kind we see in other paintings by

Seurat.

The lack of narrative means we really should look to the artist's obsession with

form,

technique and Theory - which is practically all he wrote about.

And not to meaning or subject matter - which he didn't write about at all.

The painting is really his Manifesto.

His protagonists don't have faces or body language, neither a history nor individuality.

They are reduced to a hat, a corset, or a pet.

They are just characters in his frieze.

They exist only to give Perfect Balance to the composition.

Some paintings are designed for the viewer to "empathise with"

but Seurat keeps us at arm's length.

We are not invited to "participate" in the Promenade,

and their psychological distance is clear.

Both with their neighbours, and with us.

It was ancient art that Seurat looked to - of Egypt and Greece.

He once said that he "Wanted to make modern people move about

as they do on the Parthenon Frieze,

and place them on canvases organized by harmonies of colour".

It is what makes the painting So intriguing.

On the one hand,

it is modern - a representation of 1884 - and on the other,

it is an image of classical art.

Seurat's work reflects science and research. and celebrates Harmony,

an obsession with the artist - not just in colour,

but also there is geometric Harmony and unity in the painting.

The tranquil, calming effect of the painting is down to its austere linear structure.

The verticals of the trees, and the figures.

The use of rhythm in the repetition of parasols and postures,

and the horizontals of the reclining figures, the canoes and the Shadows.

Take these two women.

One wears a hat and holds a parasol,

the other woman's hat and parasol are on the floor.

One figure looks up and one looks down.

Her top is red, and her dress is blue.

The other's top is blue and her dress is red.

These two soldiers mirror this couple.

The subtlety of this man's cane, at the same angle as the rower's oars.

It is carefully considered, it is scientific, and it is analytical,

but step back and everything is measured and harmonious.

The eighth and final impressionist group show took place in 1886

and despite La Grand Jatte being the star of the show,

it did not sell.

Within five years Seurat was dead.

Probably from diphtheria, and two weeks later his son died from the same disease.

Then in 1900, his friends sold the painting for the paltry sum of 800

Francs.

Frederick Clay Bartlett of Chicago, bought the work in 1924,

and donated it to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Where it is housed today, as a key work of European modernism.

This painting is sometimes seen as too rational, pessimistic, cynical or even lifeless.

But I disagree.

I think it is a joyous painting, a celebration of ideas, and essentially optimistic.

I like to think of Seurat,

and the excitement of seeing his painting emerge from hundreds of thousands of dots

and dashes.

How thrilled he would have been to see his discoveries, concepts, and systems,

appreciated by generations of art lovers.

All thanks, to science and the glorious power of colour.

Georges Seurat will be remembered

as the artist who took accepted ideas

and conventions about colour,

and turned them on their head.

Then he rebuilt them.

Dot by Dot.