Post-Impressionsim: Sally Ng talks on Seurat's Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte, 1886.

 

Title : A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Artist : Georges Seurat

Year : from 1884 – 1886

Type : oil on canvas

Dimensions : 207.6 cm x 308 cm

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte was the largest and best-known painting of Georges Seurat. He started the painting by sitting in the park in a spring afternoon, seeing various people relaxing in the park and he sketched them. He focused on the landscape on the painting a lot, as well as the color, and the light of the painting. This painting then became very famous until now, due to its detailing and mystery. Many people are still very interested in the meaning behind this painting. This paper will discuss about how Seurat got this painting idea and why is it so popular.

The most attractive point of the painting must be the little dots, all over the canvas, which form the whole painting. Seurat used small horizontal brushstrokes of complementary colors to be the first lawyer of the painting, and then added more small dots on it. This approach made the whole painting more solid as human eyes will perceive it as a single shade or hue. It is also interesting that our eyes can mixed the colors of the dots automatically while seeing the painting. Amazingly, when we step back of the painting, it is not easy for us to see those dots. We will just get the whole picture immediately. It is believed that this painting form, which is a scientific basis, is called pointillism[1] (which also called divisionism during that time), would make the colors of the painting more powerful and sharp. This technique required the artist keep making small dots, but cannot blend the colors together on the canvas. Therefore, using pointillism, Seurat need to make a lot of efforts on the painting, and must be very patient to paint the picture dot by dot. Pointillism has sublimate impressionism to another level, which generally called “neo-impressionism” and Seurat was the founder of this style. Before painting on the canvas directly, Seurat did a lot of sketching of different parts of the painting, which is important to do so as the painting was such a huge one.

Unlike the impressionists, post-impressionists tend to focus on light and use pure colors on different objects, instead of expressing the real-life subject matters[2] . Also, post-impressionists were inclined to stress personal feelings and imagination through their paintings. This somehow explains Seurat’s ideas of the painting. For example, there is a big darken part on the ground that represent the shadow of maybe a big tree, and the remaining parts of the painting are mostly bright, to show how sunny the weather was, as it should be, on Sunday. The figures in the painting are like surround with steam --- bright and shine. Guess Seurat wanted to express how beautiful the sunshine on people, just like in reality. Nearly everything that Seurat painted in this picture were quite straightforward, as most post-impressionists. Moreover, keen on portraying Paris outskirts areas was one of the special features of post-impressionism. It also explains why A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte can fit into post-impressionism, while the place in the painting is a area which is at Paris gates.

The figures in the painting – no matter people or animals – they were mostly separated. People were doing their own things, some were strolling, some were fishing and some were just sitting on the grassland. They looked all unrelated. It probably because of Seurat’s preparation of the painting. He had been sitting on the island every morning for 6 months, observing and sketching different visitors there. The figures on the painting did not appear all at once. They were like a combination of Seurat’s memory of the island. Scholars nowadays are interested in guessing the meaning behind each figure in the painting. For example, the woman who is very large painted on the right side. Some claim that she was a courtesan, with a man who was financially supporting her life, also with her pets- a dog which was quite expensive during that period and a monkey which means prostitution, guessed by viewer. Those brown triangles on the right edge were also unclear. Were they tree roots or dresses of ladies? People are still busy discussing. These guesswork seem very reasonable and fair. Nevertheless, over-interpreting will just destroy the mystery of the painting. There must be some reasons for Seurat to paint them that way, no matter it is by natural ideas or really on purpose. As a viewer, we can have our own interpretation on the painting without referring to any scholars, in order to really admire the artwork in our own perspectives.

Another interesting peach of the painting is the monkey that leashed by the woman on the right side. Many of us might not focus on the monkey at first. However, here comes to the bizarre thing – the monkey was not there in the painting under x-ray[3]. It is believed that the monkey was added later on the painting, but not in the first draft. This showed Seurat’s uncertainty of adding the monkey. Actually, we can see that he was changing his mind of the ideas of the painting over and over again, through his sketching and drafts. It was like he knew that this painting will appeal a huge attention of the society, therefore he spent such a long time to finish it. Scholars guess the monkey means prostitution there. It is because in 1880s, “mother monkey “in French means prostitution, and prostitutions were very popular in La Grande Jatte during that time. If this is a real message that Seurat hidden in the painting, then he probably used the girl who was fishing nearly the river in the painting, again, to describe the unhealthy atmosphere of the island. Was she really fishing? Or she was doing another kind of ‘fishing’ like what a prostitute does? This would be an interesting question to discuss.

I believe that through this painting, Seurat showed his love and adore of the relaxing feeling of Sunday afternoon. And this is why this work interests me. In Hong Kong, where a city full of tall buildings and crowded people, it is hard to find a place like the island in the painting. However, this painting gives viewers a feeling that it is like we can step into the painting at any time to enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful view together. I love this relaxing feeling that this painting has brought me. Also, I like the open-ended meaning of the painting, which I can imagine those meanings behind each figure, without being told of what they actually mean.

One question I wonder of the work was that: Seurat painted another very similar painting - Bathers at Asnières[4] before A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte . What is the main difference of two paintings and why he had to paint such a similar work? In many details, we can see that two paintings seem related to each other. For instance, a boat in the river appeared in both artworks, which might point out that actually the working man and the bourgeoisie were at the same place, at the same time, looking at each other. Moreover, the size of two paintings were also very similar, which is hard for people not to imagine that they were a pair of paintings. I guess the A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte represent the lives of bourgeoisie, from their clothing to their life style; and Bathers at Asnières represent the working-class. There is a big contrast bewteen these two class. First, we can see that the clothing and the actions of the workers are very different as the bourgeoisie. The lower class did not wear clothes on their top while the middle class were so particular on their pretty clothes. On the other hand, those lower class looked so free that they did not care how they look like; but the bourgeoisie were so careful of their movement, they were all trying to be elegant. This two groups of people were on the same place and doing the same thing, but the way they acted and their attuides were so unlike.Guess that Seurat would like to compare the strongly class differences in his society through these two paintings.

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte was such an impressive artwork as it has been re-created in different forms for so many times. Its mystery and pointillism was the most significant spots of the whole painting with no doubt. It still leaves people guessing all the details after more than a century without having agreements. Those mystery details fit Seurat’s strange and silent personality. Seurat showed his new idea and skill of painting in this artwork, which had a huge effect on post-impressionism and even other visual styles.

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[1] A Sunday on La Grande Jatte , ART INSTITVTE CHICAGO
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/27992

[2] Post-Impressionism
http://magazine.99ys.com/periodical/per_152/article--480--1635_1.shtml

[3] BBC：The Private Life of A Masterpiece-A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

http://ielts.xdf.cn/201212/9240503.html

[4] Bathers at Asnières ,(picture)
http://fa.topit.me/a/b3/e4/113114143587be4b3al.jpg