A Sunday Afternoon...

Yesterday I was yapping about how I wanted to say something about the painting ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’, or about Seurat’s life and the technique he said. I’m not sure what I said, I forgot. Did I post that yesterday or the day before? Hmmm…


Anyway, having thought this over and in keeping with how I usually approach subjects like these, I decided not to focus on any of the before mentioned, but on what I think of that painting and its technique. All that from a very amateuristic point of view.

Right now I prefer to be in George’s world. On an ordinary Sunday, in a perfect park, by the blue triangular water and on the soft green elliptical grass. That’s what the painting does, it draws on our references to Sundays; dressing up, going out, hanging around, doing nothing. It’s a sentiment most people have and/or know. Because of that, the painting speaks to a lot of people.

What do I think of the technique used? I find it interesting from the science point of view and from an IT point of view. I love how Seurat used pure colours, no mixes, and arranged them in such way we perceive all the colours and the intended, but not painted mixes. Look at the hat; it has blue and red and the eye mixes it into violet. Brilliant.
Other than that Seurat laid the basis for how screens on TV’s and computers work. These days we spend a great deal of our time looking at dots and let our eyes mix it all up.

When you take a closer look at the painting you can actually see the pointillist brushstroke. It gives the painting another dimension, as if you can see right into the structure of the fabric or into the bodies of the people. Up close I find it more interesting than from afar; the reason being that ‘perspectives’ really ‘don’t make sense up there’. There lies a danger in that as illustrated in the below quote:

“He fears that the more you look at him, the less you see; that there isn’t anything really there.”
From: The Value of Social Media for Writers: Self-Promotion or External-Validation?
Please, read the rest of that article, because it puts the finger on the pain of the post before this one.

But there's a lot there. There's even more there than you can see. There's a sentiment there. There's life there in all gradations known back in the 19th century Paris. There are references there, memories, lifestyles, leisures in all sorts and forms. It's life as we know it.

To see more of the painting’s technique, go here: Art Institute of Chicago Museum scroll down.

Incidentally, I was listening the song 'Sunday' from the musical 'Sunday in the Park with George' while writing this. If you can, when studying this painting, listen to the song, it makes for quite an intense experience.