In the 1880s the lower-middle courses crowded to the Grande Jatte in suburban Paris for a waterfront walk and an outing on Sunday mid-days. This was the sort of subject that the Impressionists had made fashionable, but Seurat was far from welcoming that art activity’s quest of the fleeting and spontaneous.
He made more than 70 initial oil sketches and drawings for this defined photo, with its cautious structure and stress on streamlined geometric forms. During his two years working with La Grande Jatte, Seurat was also developing the pointilliste strategy of using shade in dots that were meant to fuse when seen from a distance, and it exists together right here with his more conventional earlier style.
Some 40 figures crowd the canvas, mainly in account or complete face. They appear static and icy in an uncommunicative proximity. Several figures have been identified as well-known Parisian stereotypes. For instance, the lady standing in the best foreground, with the striking bustle, is recognized by her pet dog monkey– icon of lasciviousness– as a woman of loosened precepts.
The seated man with the top hat on the left is a stylish infant stroller of blvds. The shift from a shaded foreground to a brilliant background produces a solid sense of deepness to which the recession of figures adds, although there are some disorienting shifts in range. Seurat claimed that his objective was to stand for modern life in the style of a classic Greek frieze.
