Seurat & the Café-Concert

From Indistinct Modesty to Overt Sexuality:

Seurat’s Changing Definition of Female Entertainers

Sasha Sadrai, Princeton Class of 2009

Women clearly covered in makeup, winking and blowing kisses out into the crowd; undergarments, as well as glimpses of uncovered flesh, being exposed as legs are raised unnaturally high above heads; prospective clients drooling over the spectacle before them while eagerly awaiting the prospect of spending an evening with one of the supple vixens on stage. This bawdy scene is the subject of Georges Seurat’s 1890 painting, The Can-Can , a distinctly defined depiction of the vulgarity of dance halls in late nineteenth century Paris. In contrast, the forms of the subjects in his conté crayon works, such as Café Concert, At the Café, European Concert, and Eden Concert done from 1887-1888 are much less detailed due to their lack of distinct contours and thus seem to take on a more respectable appearance. Why, then, would Seurat choose to make his earlier pictures of café concerts blurry and thereby exclude any potential lewdness from them? Perhaps this shift in technique, from having a lack of contours and definitions to being defined enough to distinguish the smallest of folds in the dancers’ dresses, reflects a shift in his opinion towards the entertainers at café concerts from one of admiration and respect for the talented entertainers to one of disgust for women who he only saw as sex objects.

The Exhibit
Cafe Concerts and Ambivalence
Cafe Concerts and Admiration
A Shift in Style: The Appearance of Definition
Changes in Life Explain Changes in Art
Works Cited
About the Author

The Gallery
L'esprit montmartrois
Cabarets
The Circus
Brothels
Cafe Concerts