Seurat, Georges. Bridge at Courbevoie (1886-7)

Cross, Henri Edmond. Blue Boat (1899)

Signac, Paul. Clipper, Asnieres (1887)

Bathers, Seurat's first major work, contains only hints of the Pointillism that would later become Seurat's trademark. The use of adjacent complimentary colors, such as the blue water on the orange bathing suit, applied the scientific principle that was the foundation for Pointillism. Seurat uses some dots and tiny brushstrokes of color in Bathers, for example in the boy's hat and in the grass. However these dots are placed sparingly within a block of color, and not placed tightly together as Seurat would do in his later paintings.

Grande Jatte was Seurat's first Pointillist work. It is clear that Seurat was developing his Pointillist style, for the brushwork varies greatly within the painting: Seurat uses tiny dots of red green and white to depict the grass, small brown, green, and white vertical lines to depict the tree bark, and slightly larger brushstrokes paint the clothes and flesh of the characters in the foreground. Before exhibiting the painting, Seurat also touched up the painting with a pointillist border, which consists of fine dots of complimentary color to the color the border touches at a certain point (e.g. the border is red where it touches green, and is blue where it touches orange, etc). Grand Jatte is Seurat's first Pointillist work, however he continued to develop the style after the painting's completion.

Though not nearly as well known as Grande Jatte, Seurat's Bridge at Courbevoie (1886-7, London, Courtald Institude) is considered by many to be a better example of Pointillism in its purest form. Though it is no grandiose painting, Bridge at Courbevoie uses dots of complimentary color, mostly yellowish greens and violets, to stir emotion in the viewer and to depict nature (the hazy mist and the leafy trees) in a subtle manner. (Leighton, 138) This exceptional ability of Pointillism to convey mood purely through style was what intrigued many of Seurat's followers such as Signac, Charles Angrand, and Henri Edmond Cross. Seurat's followers, like Seurat, found that this style was good at capturing the subtleties of waterfronts and ocean scenes.

La Chahut (1889-90)

A young woman powdering herself (1890)

Circus (1890-1)

Seurat drastically changed his style after Models. Though Parade du Cirque (1887-8) and Models were exhibited at the same show in 1888, the two paintings are very different. Although both are drawn in the Pointillist style, the dots in Models are much finer than they are in Parade. Furthermore, in Parade there is more white space in between the dots, giving the painting a more spontaneous look- reminiscent of the spontaneity of Impressionist works.

Seurat's last four major works (Parade du Cirque, La Chahut (1889-90), A young woman powdering herself (1890), and Circus (1890-1)) are very similar and show that after Models, Seurat veered in a direction altogether different from any of his first three works. Though hard to qualify, his last four works have similar color schemes: they are dominated by muted yellows, pinks, and purples, as well reddish-browns and off-whites. These colors are much less vibrant than the oranges and blues in Bathers, or even the reds and greens in Grande Jatte. Considering that the goal of Pointillism was to increase color intensity, it is somewhat ironic that Seurat never was able to use pointillism to recreate the vibrancy of color that he achieved in Bathers (which was created before Pointillism had been fully developed).

Seurat's last four paintings show how he became more interested in the usage of line rather a usage of color. Each of the four paintings is dominated by lines that act in the ways Seurat described in his terse letter to Maurice Beauborg in 1890, "Gaiety...in terms of line... lines above the horizontal. Calmness...in terms of line, the horizontal. Sadness… in terms of line, downward directions." In Circus, for example, the audience sits in parallel horizontal lines that contrast with the central performer, who stands leaning up and to the right. Seurat's scientific use of line is apparent in these four paintings, but his scientific use of color is difficult to discern due to the muted colors.

One of the most notable differences between these last four paintings and Models is the lack of politicized content. The three paintings that portray entertainers convey the "alienation of late nineteenth century social life" primarily through the prominent lines and muted colors. (Smith, Seurat and the Avante Garde, 123) Though the paintings do have substantive details that add to this feeling of alienation--for example, in Circus, the poorer spectators are standing in the back while the wealthier spectators sit in front-- the overwhelming mood is created by the style. The color and line strike the viewer immediately, and only upon close examination does the viewer notice these small details. Seurat must have realized his initial success with conveying emotion and social message through style as he did in Bathers and Grande Jatte, and, after Models, returned his focus on style rather than on politicized content.

Seurat died at the young age of thirty-one, cutting his career as an artist (1882-1891) to under a decade. In his artwork, Seurat sought to return to the permanence and reflective nature of classical art that had been abandoned for the spontaneity of Impressionism. This goal was reflected in his painting methodology: Seurat would spend months planning a single canvas, drawing and redrawing studies and sketches. Due to his slow, meticulous method of painting, Seurat painted less than ten major works in his career. Nevertheless, his work and his divergence from the Impressionist view of art were influential in the development of Neo-Impressionism and subsequent art movements.

In 1878, Seurat enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he studied classical art under Henri Lehmann, a pupil of Ingres. However, after only a year and a half of formal training, Seurat left to pursue his own independent study to systematize the use of color. He took notes on works by Puvis de Chavannes and Delacroix and he read the aesthetic treatises of Michel Chevreul, Charles Blanc, O. N. Rood, and others. He systematize the methods used empirically by Corot and the Impressionists.

His first major painting, Bathers at Asnières (1883â€"4), was rejected by the Paris Salon in 1884 but exhibited by the newly formed Groupe des Artistes Indépendants. At the 1884 exhibition, Seurat met Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross, who collaborated with him in developing the method of Pointillism, the use of tiny dots of complimentary colors to create vibrant colors. The pointillist method was employed in his second major painting, Sunday on the Island of Grande Jatte (1884-6) which was exhibited at the eight and last Impressionist exhibition in 1886. Only a few months afterwards, Seurat began work on Models, which he exhibited in 1888 at the fourth exhibition of the Societe des Artistes Independants.

Seurat's changing social circle may have been influential in causing Seurat to gain an interest in politicizing the message of his works while losing interest in the innovation of color. Before the exhibition of Bathers in 1884, Seurat was good friends with Edmond Aman-Jean, a friend that Seurat knew from the classical art school the Ecole de Beaux Arts. (Leighton 14) However, from the exhibition onward, Seurat became good friends with artists such as Paul Signac, Camille Pissarro, Henri Edmond-Cross, and others. (Herbert 83) These artists, most of who belonged to the Societe des Artistes Independants, were more radical than Seurat's Ecole friends both artistically and politically. In October 1885, Seurat also became friends with a group of writers known as the Symbolists who sought to revolutionize their art by emphasizing "the evocation of mood and underlying reality rather than the precise rendition of nature". (Leighton 133) Seurat became so involved in this social group of artists and writers that from 1886 onwards, "Seurat effectively belonged to a small and esoteric avant-garde whose activities were confined almost exclusively within a square kilometer". (Smith)Though hardly anything is known about the political beliefs of Seurat, journalist Felix Feneon argued by default that "one can assume that Seurat shared the views of his friends, because his literary and artistic comrades…belonged to anarchist circles, and if his opinions had been opposed to theirs it would have been noticed." (qtd Thomson 95) Whether or not Seurat was a leftist, after the 1884 exhibition of Bathers, he was increasingly exposed to anarchism and criticisms of the bourgeoisie. This may have contributed to his interest in satirizing the bourgeoisie as he did in Grande Jatte, and contrasting them with working class as he does in Models.

Click here for a full biography courtesy of Grove Art Encyclopedia

Studies for La Grande Jatte (1884-6)

It is most unfortunate that Seurat's desire to add social commentary to his art precluded him from further advancing the use of color. In both, Grande Jatte and Models, Seurat's use of color as a mere tool to illuminate the social commentary in the paintings demonstrates how Seurat found content increasingly more important than style and that Seurat was willing to sacrifice his innovation of color so that he could entertain his viewers with social commentary. By sacrificing the very thing for which he initially became famous, the innovative use of colors, Seurat gave up what made him unique as an artist. Seurat's revision of Models (small version) proved that he could draw Models in a different style and keep the meaning of the painting practically intact. The ability of an artist to change a work of art without much changing its meaning is a bad sign: for it signifies that the method by which the painting conveys meaning is unimportant. Even Roger Fry, who so fervently put forth the perfection of Models, agrees that Models "lacks the great style of most of Seurat's drawings. It is for such reasons that I cannot share the widely expressed opinion of my fellow critics that this is a greater masterpiece than the Bathers". (Fry 193) Fry implies that Bathers is such a masterpiece because it is able to convey meaning through its style. Models could be drawn in a different style without much harm to its meaning, but imagine if the same were done for Bathers! Bathers would lose the vibrant, tranquil colors that give it all its meaning.

Although Seurat revolutionized the use of color with his Bathers, Seurat did not seem to recognize that his own strength lay in his use of color and not content. Over his next two paintings, Seurat became increasingly determined to infuse his paintings with social commentary, even at the expense of stylistic innovation. Though the content of Models allows an interesting contrast to be drawn between the plain working class models and the pretentious upper class, one could just as easily imagine the work coming from a number of other neo-classical artists. Though Models was painted with dots of color, Seurat seems to have forgotten that the purpose of the pointillist method was to use vibrant, complimentary colors to create a striking first impression for the viewer. Had Seurat recognized that his greatest strength as an artist lay in his use of color in Bathers, Seurat could have become a more revolutionary artist than he is considered now by furthering the role of color to convey meaning, rather than showing a regression in his use of colors in order to accommodate political messages in his art. ]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/dlieber/001867.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/dlieber/001867.html Mon, 02 May 2005 21:35:30 +0000

Studies for Models (1866-8)

Models (Small Version) (1888)

In Models, Seurat relies completely on content to accomplish his social contrast between the bourgeois and the working class: Model's color serves merely to balance the painting. The biggest difference between the use of color in Models and in Seurat's first two major works is that there is minimal use of complimentary colors in Models. Although the most prominent colors in Models are red and green, which are complimentary colors, the two colors never touch each other and therefore do not work to amplify each other as they do in Grande Jatte. Most of the painting is washed in a haze of purple, which detracts from the vibrancy of the painting. Whereas in Bather, Seurat was able to illuminate the bathers flesh by using solid strokes of white, in Models Seurat tries too hard to make his flesh realistic by putting miniscule dots of flesh color. Although Seurat uses the dots of the pointillist technique, he does not use any of the color strategies he learned while studying Delacroix, which undermines Seurat's work.

Studies for Bathers (1883-4)

Grande Jatte, on the other hand, is unquestionably a social statement. Nineteenth century critic J.K. Huysmans immediately picked up on what is so strange about the figures in Grande Jatte when he said, "Strip [Seurat's] figures of the colored fleas that cover them, and underneath you will find nothing, no thought no soul; nothing. Nothingness in bodies whose contours alone exist." (qtd Rewald 64) Although Huysmans found this "nothingness" distasteful, this internal nothingness, the sense of external importance and superficiality, is what makes the painting so meaningful. With this "nothingness", Seurat lampoons the rigidity and superficiality of the bourgeoisie by making their postures rigid and clothing elaborate and constricting. Furthermore, the inclusion of symbols, most obviously a monkey on a leash and a woman fishing, is indicative of the painting's satirical nature. In nineteenth century slang, 'singesse' (female monkey in French) meant prostitute. The wordplay of 'pêche' (fishing) and 'péché' (sin) was a pun often made in French cartoons with reference to prostitution. (Thomson 123) Such symbols speak to the ability of "the proletarian woman [to] become superficially bourgeois through prostitution." (Thomson 124) Through this subtle imagery, Seurat adds another dimension to the comparison of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, noting the superficiality and immorality within high class society. The inclusion of Grande Jatte's social statement of the superficiality of the bourgeoisie contrasts strongly with Seurat's exclusion of a social statement from Bathers. When looked at as a pair, the contrast between the relaxed lower-middle class figures in Bathers and the rigid upper-class figures in Grande Jatte furthers the social message found in Grand Jatte. However, when each painting is examined individually, it is clear that Seurat intended to make Grande Jatte, and not Bathers, into a social statement.

Due to the importance of the content itself (the figures, their activities, and their clothing) in conveying the painting's message of the rigidity and superficiality of the bourgeoisie, the colors in Grande Jatte take a back seat to content. Whereas the colors in Bathers directly convey the painting's meaning, the colors in Grande Jatte work to highlight the content, thus indirectly conveying the painting's message. Complimentary colors are used in Grande Jatte, but to a different effect than in its predecessor. Whereas in Bathers Seurat's most prominent color combination was orange and blue, a color combination that was soothing and vibrant, in Grande Jatte the dominant contrast is that of red and green. In Grande Jatte, almost every figure wears or carries a red item (parasols, dresses, pants, shirt, hat/hair, etc.). Because complimentary colors work by creating a sharp contrast at the edge between the two colors, the red on green distinguishes the rigid outlines of the figures from the sunlit, green grass. It is crucial for Seurat to draw attention to the outlines of the figures because it is primarily the repetition of the figures' rigidity which gives the painting its satirical nature. Although the symbols of Grande Jatte add to the social satire, the base of the satire is created purely by style: by the color which intensify the rigid outlines of the bourgeoisie figures.

Bathers and Grande Jatte demonstrate how, through an innovative use of complimentary colors, Seurat is able to convey messages to the viewer that he would not be able to convey merely through content. It is an impressive accomplishment that the deeper meaning of Bathers, a mood rather than a specific social message, is completely conveyed through the use of color. In order to create the social message of Grande Jatte, Seurat relies more on substantive details, such as the fashion of the bourgeoisie and the symbols of the monkey and the woman fishing. However, Seurat's accomplishment in Grande Jatte is that he is able to present these substantive details in an interesting, subtle way by using an innovative use of color. Though Seurat's color is less innovative in Grande Jatte than in Bathers, the interplay between style and content makes Grande Jatte's social commentary as effective as the mood conveyed by Bathers. ]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/dlieber/001864.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/dlieber/001864.html Mon, 02 May 2005 21:34:48 +0000 In Bathers, Seurat's successful use of adjacent complimentary colors allowed the vibrancy of color itself to convey a mood of tranquility. The serene mood of the painting can surely be attributed to the Seurat's scientific portrayal of "calm" which he discusses in his letter. The cool blue water balances with the more vibrant greens and orange to create the balance of warm and cool colors that Seurat described in his 1890 letter. In Bathers, the vibrant cleanliness and purity of the colors themselves translates into the impression that the middle class men are being purified and cleansed by this relaxation ritual. A smooth white pervades the entirety of Bathers: the skin of the bathers, the coat of the man in the bowler hat, the piles of clothes. Even the factories in the background give off not a dirty black smoke, but white-gray cloudlike puffs. Contrasting with the white, the bright oranges and prominent blacks in the clothing of the bathers adds to the sense of purity and cleanliness. The colors are all vibrant. There are hardly any earth colors, mostly bright blues, oranges, greens, whites and blacks. The repeated use of orange on blue (hair, hat, and shorts with water), black on white (the clothes worn by the reclining man, pile of clothes) red on green (dog, rims of hat and grass) as dictated by the principle of complimentary colors adds to the color intensity that strikes the viewer even upon first glance. Through the simple use of pure, vibrant colors Bathers is able to convey a mood and a message to the viewer. The mood is the serenity that the bathers experience and the message is that by removing himself from the city to the suburbs for a day, a man can rejuvenate himself physically and mentally.

Despite Bather's success in conveying meaning purely through color, Seurat began to replace his interest in color for an interest in politicized content. The increasing politicization of Seurat's art, the substitution of a subtle color-conveyed mood for a more overt, content-driven message, can seen in the difference between Bathers and Grande Jatte, which depict the same subject matter of relaxing by the Seine but have very different intentions. Bathers and Grande Jatte are similar in subject matter in that they both portray people sitting by the Seine in a diagonal perspective. Many details make the two seem like a pair of opposing paintings. Bathers faces right and Grande Jatte faces left, the same ferry with a tricolor flag traveling in Bathers seems to be landing at Grande Jatte, the figures in Bathers are simply dressed compared to the ornately dressed figures of Grande Jatte. These opposites lead many to initially believe that the two paintings form a social statement highlighting the contrast between the relaxed, unaffected workers in Bathers and the rigid, superficial bourgeoisie in Grande Jatte. (House, 346-7)

Foremost among these principles of color was the concept of complementary colors, which are color pairs that work together to enhance the brilliance of a color. Color pairs include orange and blue, purple and yellow, green and red. If for example, artists wanted to maximize the intensity of an orange object, they could include hints of blue within and around the orange. In an 1890 letter Seurat tersely explains the tenets which governed his art throughout his lifetime: "Art is harmony. Harmony is the analogy between opposites and the analogy between elements similar in tonal value, color, and line." He goes on to explain that his art consists of contrasts between light and dark, and contrasts between complementary colors "red-green, orange-blue, yellow-violet". Seurat's system includes the systematic representation of mood. "Gaiety in terms of tonal value is a luminous dominant tonality of color, a warm dominant color…Calmness in terms of tonal value is an equal amount of dark and light in terms of color, and equal amount of warm and cool… Sadness in terms of tonal value is a dominant dark tonality and in terms of color a cold dominant color." (qtd Broude 18) Seurat knew that these simplistic rules, if executed correctly, could be extremely powerful tools to command the mood of the viewers of his art. The pointillist method that Seurat developed was based on these tenets, and the color of each tiny dot (point) was determined by an application of these rules. Through this method, Seurat could achieve technical brilliancy.

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