Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte Analysis

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte: George Seurat, 1884

Georges Seurat, was born in 1859 and died at the age of 32. He was a very young French artist who revolutionized the art world. The artists of his time were typically impressionists, but this young artist used what is now referred to as pointillism or divisionism, by using tiny dots and strokes. As part of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection this large oil on canvas painting, measuring 81 ¾ x 121 ¼, created in 1884, from a distance, looks as if it was painted with a brush. However, upon closer examination every image is created with dots in various sizes and strokes, gradually combined with complimentary colors, they create images when viewed from far away. Seurat

Sunday is a day for rest and relaxation and this painting portrays that feeling. There is no urgency in anything they are doing. The feeling is relaxing while they enjoy a slightly windy, sunny day by the water. This is confirmed by the many women shading themselves with umbrellas and the men and children covering themselves with hats. Although the park is full of activity, the feeling is calm, peaceful, and silent. At the onset, this work of art seems to be a simple depiction of many couples, children and animals as a large group, yet it eventually reveals Seurat’s ability to create a separate story with every image. Starting with the activity on the water he uses diverse boats conveying the feeling the people in the park are gazing onto the water being entertained, yet the faces that are only visible on eight individuals, seem to have no expression. Much of his work is naturalistic using people, dogs, trees, and water and this painting also fits into that category. This piece of art is abstract. It is simple and reductive, showing the artists own style of painting and revealing tiny secret details such as a dragonfly, a leash for the money, a woman’s fan, and undetailed flowers that can be missed without careful study of the

Some are very visible and some really need to be looked for. The first was is the shadows of the trees, they seem to be forming a circular shape. Before long with more observation you begin to notice the people’s shadows were forming circles or ovals, and the women’s bodies and hips being very wide almost forming perfect circle. In the center of the painting a red object with a circular white center, take a few minutes to figure out, it is a woman with a hat and jacket sitting on the ground with her back to the audience and other women have circular flowers on their hats. The circle seems to be a predominant shape but that is not the only shape. Seurat also incorporated squares and rectangles throughout the painting with top hats and body shapes of many of the people forming large and small alike, smaller objects such as a rock that had a square like shape, as well as the tree trunks forming long rectangles extending over the water. Finally, there are small hidden triangles in the creases of the women’s dresses and the umbrellas have a very noticeable point that forms a triangle when open and when folded create a longer triangle. Many of the tree branches form triangles, as well as the sails on the