What was Georges Seurat looking at when he painted the sketches for his Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte masterpiece? The lush green Ile de la Grande Jatte, which means Big Bowl Island, created the perfect setting for Seurat’s depiction of a relaxing Sunday Afternoon. Its grassy banks provided a comfortable and secluded getaway for wealthy Parisians. The mile-long island, located on the Seine in the Neuilly-sur-Seine department of Paris, has always been known for its class and leisure. Four miles to the northwest of Paris, it was just far away enough from the metropolis for people to experience a more relaxed atmosphere where women could fish, children could run around at ease, and men could lounge in the shade.
The precise location of Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte is unknown, but based on the fact that the sun sets in the west and it is after noon, we can infer from the light shining through the trees on the left that the Seurat painted from the western shore. Today, the western shore is mostly steep with little resemblance to Seurat’s scene, but there is one stretch that maintains similar topography to the painting. The rest of the island has since been populated with office buildings and a posh residential community. To this day, the island and its surrounding city of Neuilly-sur-Seine remains one of the wealthiest suburbs of Paris.
The island provided settings for other artists besides Seurat, offering us a further idea of what the island looked like before it was industrialized. Sisley painted a very different scene than Seurat's in La Grande Jatte. It is composed of a wooded shore, covered with broken logs and snags. Could this be the same island Seurat was seeing? It was most likely scene from the other side of the island. The general demeanor of this painting is different, too. While Seurat painted a peaceful Sunday afternoon scene, Sisley's La Grande Jatte is draped with sombre-looking clouds, making it much less appealing.
Claude Monet also painted an image of the island, and his vantage point looks up-river rather than down-river. The Seine appears very much like it does in La Grande Jatte, but the shoreline takes on a different character with the inclusion of a winding promenade. Behind the path, the island is thickly wooded, as opposed to the great expanse of green grass that Seurat saw. As a result of the trees and the path, there is only enough room for a few people to lounge on the limited grass area. Still, Monet illustrates a more peaceful and relaxing Sunday than Sisley.
Which of these artists was correct in their depiction of La Grande Jatte? Based on the two antique photographs of the banks and the selected modern photograph of the modern day island, La Grande Jatte by Seurat best captures the sloping green down to the bank of the peaceful river. Perhaps it was Seurat's meticulous style that forced him to replicate what he saw with such attention to detail.