T.J. McNamara: Seurat's grand triumph of light

In <i>Sunday on the Grande Jatte</i>, Georges Seurat wanted to create sparkling, dappled play of light. Photo / Supplied

It's huge, French and resides in Chicago - the massive Sunday on the Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. The initial surprise when you see the work in the middle of the superb collection of Impressionist paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago is that it is bigger than all the other works. It is easily the most famous painting in the city.

The second impression is of light - brilliant sunlight flickering through the trees and across the grass of the island and water of the river Seine. On the island, as on a stage, the people of Paris disport themselves in every attitude of summer recreation. Their attitudes are caught and held still for all time like the figures on Keats' Grecian Urn.

When he was young, Monet made some large paintings of picnics which he was obliged to cut up in order to sell. In his old age he did huge paintings of the lily ponds in his garden but nothing as completely composed as Seurat's La Grande Jatte in which the removal of any figure, however small, would affect the whole intricate composition of 48 people, eight boats, three dogs and a monkey. The work took more than two years to paint.

The Grande Jatte is an island in the Seine, which, because of a big bend, comes back again toward Paris and was easily accessible as a suburban park for Parisiens. As a pleasure spot it appears in other paintings by Impressionists.

Seurat is usually labelled as a Post-Impressionist - his aims are different from typical Impressionists and provide a bridge in style between them and the Modern Art of the 20th century.

The Impressionists, who had been so revolutionary and much attacked by critics when their art was first exhibited, had become a little dissatisfied with the nature of their achievement. Their open-air painting, reacting against accepted academic styles, had emphasised effects of light and subjects in everyday life rather than stories from history or mythology. They emphasised spontaneity and improvisation with lively brushwork that avoided detail in favour of spontaneity and eclat.

They came to realise that their small, quick paintings that recorded moments of joy in the shimmer of light could not really foot it with the monumental paintings of the past that hung in museums like the Louvre.

Monet tried to find his answer towards the end of his life by making his paintings of lilies huge. Renoir made the bodies of his nudes heavier to make them monumental.

The Post-Impressionists found different answers. Cezanne made every touch of his brush meditated instead of spontaneous. Van Gogh at his best made his brushwork and colour express intensity of emotion. Seurat turned to history and science and a change of style to make his work ordered, comparable to the art of the museums while still retaining the gains in rendering sunlight and the pleasures of life.

Typically the Impressionists began their paintings directly in front of the subject without following the traditional procedures of preliminary drawings and studies. Before Seurat began on his giant painting he made more than 50 paintings and drawings. His drawings in black crayon on textured paper are marvellous studies of figures in light and he made many of them for the people in the painting as well as studies of the dogs and monkey. He also made many deft little paintings on the island and near the river which are now in museums around the world.

History played its part because the figures in profile are consciously like the monumental profile art of ancient Egypt and sculptural processions in Greek temples. The stillness of the figures is emphasised by the shadows which anchor them as pedestals support statues.

Then there is his famous, mind-boggling manner of painting that has been labelled Pointillism. This is usually taken to mean that Seurat's big paintings were painted with innumerable dots of colour mixed by the eye when the work was seen from a distance. In reality the tiny marks that make up La Grande Jatte are mostly not dots but little flecks of paint placed close together and on top of each other. The French word "point" means stitch rather than dot.

Seurat read widely in scientific discussions about the theory of the effect of light and colour. He knew mixing colours in light was different from mixing pigment colours but he wanted the effect of sparkling light. He divided his colours according to complementary colour so dark colours were placed alongside bright colours so both appeared vibrant. He was endeavouring to achieve the dappled play of light most notably through the foliage of leaves. To get the vividness of colour he used an orange/yellow for the light and placed innumerable touches of colour alongside it. He also ran a dark frame of flecks of colour around the painting to contrast with the sunlight of the scene.

The painting is a landmark in the history of art and a triumph of French art so why is it not in the Louvre with the other huge paintings by David, Ingres, Delacroix and Gericault? It is the pride and joy of Chicago and endlessly reproduced on merchandise. The Chicagoans feel they have stolen a march on the French over this painting and indeed they have.

The painting was first shown in 1886 at the eighth and last Impressionist Exhibition. The Impressionists were on the way to acceptability but the Post-Impressionists were not. Seurat's work had a mixed reception except among other artists. Seurat died at 32, leaving only a small number of paintings, none of them as rich as La Grande Jatte, although one large work showing boys resting beside and swimming in the Seine has become a favourite in the National Gallery in London. He had a number of followers who worked in his manner but the rush of developments in the 20th century rather passed him by. There was no real opposition when American collector Frederic Clay Bartlett swooped in 1824, bought the painting and gifted it to the Art Institute in 1927. Since then it has become immensely popular and even inspired a musical by Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George.

For gallery listings, see www.nzherald.co.nz/go/artlistings