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Course: Europe 1800 - 1900 > Unit 5
Lesson 4: Post-Impressionism- Introduction to Neo-Impressionism, Part I
- Introduction to Neo-Impressionism, Part II
- Neo-Impressionist Color Theory
- Seurat, Bathers at Asnières
- Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
- Seurat, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte – 1884”
- Van Gogh, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin
- Think you know van Gogh? The Potato Eaters
- Van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear
- Van Gogh, The Bedroom
- Van Gogh's Irises: Getty Conversations
- Van Gogh, The Starry Night
- Van Gogh, The Starry Night
- The Pont-Aven School and Synthetism
- Paul Gauguin, Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables)
- Paul Gauguin, Vision after the Sermon, or Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
- Gauguin, Nevermore
- Gauguin, The Red Cow
- Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching
- Gauguin, Oviri
- Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
- Gauguin and Laval in Martinique
- An introduction to the painting of Paul Cézanne
- Why Is This Woman in the Jungle?
- Cézanne, The Bather
- Cézanne, The Basket of Apples
- Cézanne, Still Life with Plaster Cupid
- Cézanne, Still Life with Plaster Cupid
- Cézanne, The Red Rock
- Cézanne, Still Life with Apples
- Cézanne, Turning Road at Montgeroult
- Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire
- Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire
- Cezanne, Card Players
- Cézanne, Bathers
- Cezanne, The Large Bathers
- Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge
- Post-Impressionism
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Seurat, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte – 1884”
“A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte – 1884” by Georges Seurat is considered to be one of the most important 19th century paintings. It made its debut in 1886 at the 8th annual and final Impressionist exhibition in Paris and has been on display at the Art Institute of Chicago since the 1920s. Seurat’s unusual technique and the painting’s monumental scale opened the door for a more expansive European modernism. Find out more about what makes this painting a masterpiece with James Rondeau, President and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago. Video by Bank of America. Created by Smarthistory.
Want to join the conversation?
- Why did the women of this era choose to enhance their bodies with the shape of dresses?(3 votes)
- One might just as well ask why upper class men of the Elizabethan period in England wore codpieces, or why Southern Belles in the USA wore (and continue to wear) hoop skirts. These were fashions enjoyed by the rich people who could afford to buy such things. The poor just wore whatever they could cover themselves with.(1 vote)
Video transcript
(Music plays) ( ♪♪ ) ( ♪♪ ) Hello, I'm James Rondeau, President and
Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago. Welcome to Bank of America's
Masterpiece Moment. Today, I would like to talk about one of my favorite
works from our collection, "Sunday on La Grande Jatte"
by Georges Seurat, and tell you why I think
it is truly a masterpiece. Georges Seurat has created
a scene of leisure set on a small section
of an elongated island in the Seine River just
beyond Paris's city limits. Seurat's canvas is
filled with figures, including three dogs, eight boats,
forty-eight people and, oddly, one monkey, who gather on
a Sunday afternoon to enjoy and parade
around in nature. "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte"
was painted in 1884 and is generally considered
to be Seurat's masterpiece and certainly one of
the greatest paintings of the nineteenth century. Like many of his
Impressionist contemporaries such as Claude Monet, Seurat embraced the subject
matter of modern life. Seurat, however, went beyond
their prevailing concerns for translating in paint
the qualities of light in the city or in nature. Seurat, inspired by
recently published research in optical and color theory, developed his own
"scientific" style called Pointillism, from the French word
for "point" or "dot." Tackling the issues
of color, light and form, Seurat's method juxtaposed
tiny dabs of color, often complementary colors, to create hues
that he believed, through optical blending, were more intense
and luminous. In 1886, Seurat
debuted the painting at the eighth and final
Impressionist exhibition. He was only
twenty-six years old. It shocked the Paris art world
when it was first shown. "Bedlam," "scandal,"
"hilarity" were among the epithets
used by critics to describe what
is now considered to be the artist's
greatest work. Recognized for its
unusual technique, simplified figure types
and enormous scale, this monumental work
is a manifesto of a new style of painting that broke with
Impressionism and would open the door for a more expansive
European Modernism employed by the likes
of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne
and Pablo Picasso. This picture was
only rarely seen in the three decades following the artist's
death in 1891. When Art Institute trustee
Frederic Clay Bartlett purchased the painting in 1924, he wrote to then museum
director Robert Harshe, exclaiming that he had
attained, and I quote, "almost by a miracle the
finest picture in France," close quote. So the picture was placed on
loan here at the Art Institute and gifted to
the museum in 1926. For nearly a century, this innovative
and enigmatic painting has continued to intrigue,
elude, and inspire - drawing millions
of visitors to see it. Georges Seurat was born
in Paris in December 1859 into a family
that supported him throughout his
life as an artist. He studied at the prestigious
École des Beaux-Arts, receiving a classical
training in the arts. After a year and a half,
Seurat quit school. Following one year
of military service, he returned to painting. It is extraordinary to think that just four years after
abandoning art school, Seurat was poised
to begin the two-year period of intensive preparation that culminated in this
landmark achievement. The flickering color
creates a sense of vibrancy that belies the actual
stillness of the scene. Of all the figures, only one girl in
an orange dress appears to be
in active motion. The other figures seem
almost frozen in place. Seurat sought to evoke
a sense of permanence in his depiction
of the figures by recalling the
art of the past, especially Egyptian and
Greek sculptural friezes and even Italian
Renaissance frescoes. As he explained to the
French poet Gustave Kahn, and here I quote Seurat, "I want to make modern people,
in their essential traits, move about as they
do on those friezes, and place them on canvases organized by harmonies
of color," close quote. Two or three years after
it was exhibited in 1886, Seurat restretched the canvas. To make the experience of
the painting even more intense, he surrounded the canvas with a frame of
hand-painted dashes and dots, which he, in turn, enclosed
with a pure white wood frame, similar to the one with which
the painting is exhibited today. Unlike many of his
fellow Impressionists, drawing was also a foundational
part of his process. During the years 1884 and 1885, Seurat was hard at work
on "La Grande Jatte." The genesis of this
large canvas, seven feet by ten feet, involved approximately
twenty-eight drawings, twenty-four oil panels
and three larger canvases. Within the
Art Institute's collection, we have drawings related to
two of the foreground figures. In drawing, for example, Seurat developed
the expressive contours of the seated female
figure holding a parasol that would ultimately occupy the
center of the finished painting. He also worked
through the proportions and the stance of the
"Woman Walking with a Parasol." A small oil on a thin,
wood panel in our collection is one of the twenty-four
painted studies the artist made. These panels show the enormous
changes to the composition as he worked out the
placement of the figures. For example, the now-iconic
man in a top hat and a woman oddly
walking a monkey were not included
in the early sketch. Instead, the artist depicted
two seated, elderly figures assuming the central
right placement, with a bustled female
figure approaching them. A 2004 exhibition
at the Art Institute devoted to the making
of "La Grande Jatte" shared numerous discoveries
by painting conservators, showing how Seurat
transferred and altered figures from studies to the final canvas and elucidated the exact nature
of his pigments and brushwork. Color scientists also examined
how some of the pigments have changed over time
on the surface, such as the yellow
of the sunlit grass, which has darkened over time. This painting has inspired
many, not only in painting, but in music and theater, notably the epic and
iconic Broadway musical "Sunday in the Park with George"
by Stephen Sondheim. The painting's become
a cultural touchstone, appearing in movies such
as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and referenced in
television programs and, of course
now even in memes. The experience of
seeing this painting, live and in-person, has captured the imagination
of millions of visitors, resulting in the countless
references to it during the almost 100 years
since it came to Chicago. I want to thank you for
taking the time to watch today and to learn more about
"Sunday on La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat. I encourage you
to join the conversation and discuss the piece
with friends and family. And, please, visit the Bank of America
Masterpiece Moment website to sign up for alerts and ensure that you never
miss a single moment. To sign up to
receive notifications about new Bank of America
Masterpiece Moment videos, please visit: www.bankofamerica.com/
masterpiecemoment.