A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (French: Un dimanche après -midi à l' Île de la Grande Jatte ) is a painting by the French painter Georges Seurat ( 1859-1891 ) from 1884-1886. The image that is associated with the Post- Impressionism, now hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Description

The picture shows people from different walks of life under a bright summer sky on the banks of the Seine in Paris in the late 19th century. The Ile de la Jatte is an approximately two- kilometer-long island in the Seine west of Paris.

Shown are, from left front:

• A pipe-smoking canoeists,
• A middle-class couple with cylindrical and hat,
• A black dog,
• A bouncing little dog,
• A pair of statuesque severity ( the woman with a monkey on a leash )

• Angler with onlooking forming friend
• A nurse and an older man under an umbrella,
• A young woman with red umbrella and a small, white-robed child
• Two girls ( the one with a parasol, the other with bouquet )

• A man with trumpet,
• Two soldiers,
• Seilhüpfendes a girl
• Be a hugging couple
• More, hardly recognizable figures.

Comment

Seurat avoided largely overlaps the sitter so that they appear as silhouettes. From the picture any spontaneity is banished, so that the people act like stiff dolls. The French author Pierre Courthio designated Seurat as a "painter of vertical " and noted for his style of: "You rightly said, almost every figure in Seurat's paintings would look like, as had been told her again and again, Keep it straight! ' "

Through the technique of Pointillism, the image of tiny, as set in the grid points. Charles Angrand, Seurat was watching at work on the image, reports on the painting: " In Seurat's palette always order reigned. Three strands of white next to the thumb, each for the mixture with one of the three primary colors red, yellow, blue determined " the colors he voted according to gradations of light and dark, hot-cold and by the complementary colors. The mixture, the overall picture arises only in the eye of the beholder.

In this picture, Seurat turned for the first time with scientific rigor, the theory of optical mixing by the decomposition of the colors. The art critic Jules Christophe wrote in 1890 Seurat devoted to number 368 of the magazine Les Hommes d' aujourd'hui ( German: People today ) in a personally co-designed by Seurat Article:

" One afternoon, under a flickering summer sky we see the glistening Seine, elegant villas on the opposite shore, small, gliding on the river steamboats, sailboats and a rowboat. Under the trees, very close to us, people will go for a walk, others sit or lie lazily in the blue grass. Some fishing. We see young girl, a nanny, an old grandmother under an umbrella that looks like Dante, a boatswain, who stretched out lazily smokes his pipe and his legs are engulfed downright from the bright sun. A dark violet dog sniffs the grass, a red butterfly flying around, a young mother goes for a walk with her little daughter, who is dressed in white and wearing a salmon-colored sash. Near the water, two cadets from the military academy Saint- Cyr. A young girl ties a bunch; a child with red hair and a blue dress sitting on the grass. We see a couple with his baby and the far right hieratic, sensational pair, a young dude with his elegant companion by the arm, leading a purple - colored ultramarine monkey on a leash. "

History

Seurat completed in 1884, The Bathers at Asnieres ( Baigneurs à Asnières ), which were rejected by the jury of the Paris Salon. In the summer of the same year he began his studies for A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. In December, he applied to the Independents again The Bathers along with studies on the Grande Jatte from.

Seurat himself stated in a letter that he both study how the image Grande Jatte began on Ascension Day 1884. He held his impressions firmly on small wooden panels and transferred it to the canvas in the studio. But was still a long way to the final version. Some elements have been removed, others changed and others were added again. So took the place of sitting woman in the foreground later, the walker with the monkey on a leash.

In March 1885, he completed the picture of the Grande Jatte, where he had been working all winter. In the final version of the lying man is with jockey cap continues to run as well as the figures of the background. The picture has gained in clarity and exact design, but it lacks any spontaneity.

From 15 May to 15 June Seurat took part in the final group exhibition of the Impressionists, where Grande Jatte caused a stir. Arsène Alexandre reported on the public reaction to this picture:

" At first glance the viewer terrified. Everything was new at this huge picture: the bold design and the technique of the no one had an idea. So this was the famous pointillism. "

The picture was shown at the Salon des Independants, where the reactions were also violently:

"There was a lot of screaming on the battlefield but was waiting for the victory. The success was celebrated immediately in La Vogue, in a clever, logical and knowledgeable essay by Félix Fénéon. "

In the spring of 1885 revised the Seurat painting. In 1888 he completed the large version of the models, which shows the background of La Grande Jatte.