Sunday Afternoon

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, (1884–86)I have a childhood memory of my sister Star wearing a t-shirt with a print of Georges Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–86). I remember being fascinated by it.

This was Seurat’s second monumental composition on the theme of Parisians at leisure. It was painted at Asnières, on the island in the middle of the Seine known as la Grande Jatte. Seurat made over 30 preparatory drawings and oil sketches in which he studied the details as well as the overall composition.

When it was first exhibited, much of Seurat’s public were puzzled by the stiff, controlled figures seemed so at odds with the setting and the notion of leisure. Did they stop to consider that he was making a commentary on contemporary society?

Quite apart from social archetypes, Seurat has succeeding in capturing the shimmering brightness of a summer day. His pointillist style – applying paint in dots – seems to be ideal for this object. One can almost see the heatwaves; feel the stifling warmth; the prickly grass beneath one’s skin.

The Seine at La Grande Jatte, 1888Click on image to view the detailThe Seine at La Grande Jatte (1888), above, is another painting that completely sums up summer for me. Kenneth Clark, author of Looking at Pictures describes it rather lyrically. He was referring to Bathers at Asnières, (scroll down to see) but it applies equally to this hazy river scene:

There are moments on hot summer days when we are prepared for a miracle. The stillness and the gently vibrating haze give to our perceptions a kind of finality, and we wait listening for some cosmic hum to enchant, like Papageno's bells, the uncouth shapes and colours which surround us, so that they all dance to the same tune and finally come to rest in a harmonious order. In life the miracle doesn't happen, and it is rare enough in art, because great painters have usually created imaginary worlds, outside the range of our ordinary visual experience…

Bathers at Asnières, 1883-84Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, Normandy, 1888

To see some of Seurat’s charcoal drawings, click here.