Art Criticism- A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jette
i.
Description:
In
one of his most well-known work, Georges Seurat depicted lots of
people from seemingly different classes in society relaxing in a
suburban park on an island in the Seine River called La Grande Jatte.
This artwork is an oil on canvas painting, spanning a total of 81 3/4
x 121 1/4 inches (207.5 x 308.1 cm), or about seven by ten feet. From
1884 until the spring of 1886, A
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
took a whooping 2 years to paint, and Seurat finally completed his
masterpiece at the tender age of 26.
The
portrait consists of 48 people, three dogs, eight boats and a monkey
as they spend a warm afternoon in a lovely park. It looks like a
wonderful place to be, with soft pastures overlooking a beautiful
blue lake and big green trees shading overhead with a strong sense of
sunlight streaming through the trees. The painting, however, was
largely unseen for 30 years after Seurat’s death until art lover
Frederic Clay Barlett purchased and loaned it indefinitely to the Art
Institute of Chicago in 1924, where it still hangs until today. In
1889, Seurat re-stretched the canvas in order to paint a border of
red, orange and blue dots around the initial artwork.
ii.
Analysis:
Seurat
once said, “Some say they see poetry in my paintings, I see only
science.” It became obvious that Seurat was greatly fascinated and
inspired by the natural order of things and intended to bring science
into the methods of impressionism. He found a way of making his
paintings more luminous through the science of vision and by using
optical mixture to get the perfect color gradient instead of blending
the colors on a palette. Seurat returned to the most fundamental
element of art - point - and reinvented his own style which is
greatly reflected in this painting.
Georges
Seurat was also a master in the division of space and had an
obviously clever play of lines especially in this particular
portrait. He uses receding diagonal lines to create the illusion of
space. For example, the most distinctive is the line that draws the
eyes from the lower left to the upper right. However, many other
diagonals can be found as well. There is also a horizontal line
suggested along the coast line. The parallel lines in the painting
depicts a certain rhythm creating a sense of space and distance. Such
repetition is also visible in horizontal and vertical lines. All
these lines link to separate figures in the suggested space and the
lines on the canvas actually form an asymmetrical composition. Seurat
also used subject planes to create distance and depth to his
painting.
Instead
of following the typical impressionist method, Seurat took his time
creating this painting. He visited the La Grande Jatte often, and
would observe and make multiple small sketches before throwing them
together in a huge canvas and structuring the painting. It can be
argued that Seurat used a 3x3 grid to arrange the composition as
everything is organized and ordered.
Seurat
also had an innovative use of complementary colors, which means
colors that are opposite on the color wheel and usually clashing with
each other. This usage of complementary colors can also be seen in
the grass, where for the lighter parts, Seurat used a mixture of
green, dark green and yellow. As for the darker, shaded grass, he
used the same green with more elements of dark green with red and
blue dots thrown in together. In this case, the yellow and green are
analog colors but the red and blue are complementary. This technique
of color mixing creates an extra edge to the subjects and objects in
the painting. For example, the woman with the parasol has her skirt
painted with pink and orange dots and yet it casts a blue shadow.
Another example is the man smoking a pipe lying on his backside. He
has layered brushstrokes with pink and blue added much later on, thus
giving a clear contour of the figure and a more three dimensional
look.
iii.
Interpretation:
One
of the most noticeable things about the subjects in the painting is
that Seurat only depicted the figures in their side and front view.
This is due to Seurat’s fascination of the ancient Egyptian, Greek
and Phoenician art that inspired him to create timeless masterpieces
in his time. He sought to capture the people of his Paris just as the
ancients had immortalized their citizens, seeking a sense of
timelessness and that his work would survive even through oblivion.
Another
cognitive content in this painting is the figures being of various
classes and backgrounds. In truth, ambiguity of class was an issue in
Seurat’s time, and some may argue that it is to portray a mixing of
class. According to the Art Institute of Chicago, the portrait is a
depiction of the growing middle class at pleasure. However, other art
historians argue that Seurat was trying to illustrate the social
tension between different social classes who hang out at the same
public places but don’t interact with each other. This theory can
be supported by the fact that even though there is activity in the
painting, the placing of the figures creates a formal stiffness.
It
is also cited that Seurat included certain symbolism in his painting
to highlight the Paris that he saw. It is possible that the monkey on
the lower right represents prostitution as the French word for
monkey, singesse,
also means prostitute. Besides, the woman fishing at the water bank
may subtly suggest the other kind of fishing, and that she is, in
fact, a hooker.
The
girl near the center of the portrait is another figure that holds
potential message and mystery. She does not have a distinctive shadow
cast on her and her features show that she is most probably the
youngest of all the people in the painting. She is also the only one
wearing white and is looking right at the viewer, thus radiating an
energy of youth and pureness. Viewers are tempted to wonder if she
would grow up to be misguided like everyone else, muddied and
influenced by the world around her, or if she would stand firm in
pure righteousness and do what is different but right.
iv.
Judgment:
Overall,
I really like the complexity of colors, structure and the large scale
composition of the painting. I also like how Seurat departed from
loose brushstrokes and instead used calculated dots of color in his
artwork. It gives off a vibe of pensive thoughtfulness instead of the
spontaneity of the impressionism as impressionists usually capture
the fleeting moment on canvas but Seurat chose a more academic
approach by doing extensive research and studies. Seurat did not give
a clear sense of narrative to his portrait, conveying figures who do
not communicate or talk to one another, but this unclear story leaves
room for the mind to wander and to truly think about the characters
not only as they appear in the painting. It allows depth in every
sense of the word.
Despite
being clearly out of the expectation of the people in the 19th
century and having being received poorly by critics when it debuted
in 1886, A
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte has
become one of the world’s most appreciated paintings alongside the
famous Mona
Lisa.
The painting may have the ongoing impressionist influence in the
usage of color and light, visible brush strokes and subjects, yet it
displays Seurat’s different choices in size, composition and
technique. Seurat’s scientific approach and the balancing between
apparent contradictions such as tradition and innovation, modernity
and timelessness has truly made it stand out from the norm, making
it, indeed, a timeless and classical, successful piece of art.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Websites:
Stanska,
Zuzanna. “Everything You Must Know About ‘A Sunday on La Grande
Jatte’ by Georges Seurat.” DailyArtDaily.
DailyArtDaily,
2 Dec. 2016. Web. 15 Sep. 2017.
“About
This Artwork.” The
Art Institute of Chicago.
The Art Institute of Chicago, n.d. Web. 15 Sep. 2017.
Puchko,
Kristy. “15 Facts About A Sunday on La Grande Jatte - 1884.”
Mental
Floss.
Mental Floss, Inc., 1 May 2015. Web. 15 Sep. 2017.
Films:
“Seurat,
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.” YouTube,
conversation
between Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, Smarthistory. art,
history, conversation, 2 Apr. 2012, youtu.be/wNB9Vm6MoDQ.
“Georges
Seurat - A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884-1886).” YouTube,
Art
History Online, 24 Feb. 2017, youtu.be/jkVVrNfCfT8