allowing the colors to mix in the eye, as Impressionist theory held, then
using smaller strokes and subdividing the colors still further should increase
the vibrancy and the effect of natural outdoor sunlight. Starting at the right
of the painting, we see the dominant couple, she with a parasol and both of
them with pets. As we move across to the left, we see a group of three ¿ gures
who seem unrelated. There is a gentleman with a top hat and a cane, perhaps
a clerk. Behind him is a woman doing needlework. Reclining in front of
these ¿ gures is, unmistakably, a workman, smoking a pipe and wearing a
sleeveless shirt; he is dominant in the painting and is given quite speci¿ c
features. Seurat has set up a perspective system in the traditional sense of
linear perspective, but he contradicts it by using a very high horizon line and
dense trees that obstruct the movement into space.
The painting has many interesting ¿ gures, such as the tall, columnar woman
with a parasol who walks directly toward us from the center. To the left is a
nursemaid, seen from behind; a bulky ¿ gure with a turban, she is almost an
abstraction. She is reminiscent of a ¿ gure by the head of Christ in Giotto’s
Lamentation over the Dead Christ. We also see a woman ¿ shing and many
pleasure boats on the water. Seurat shows us two steam-powered boats,
which are a mechanized intrusion into the scene.
Looking at this picture, most viewers are struck by the solemnity of the
¿ gures and their lack of movement. It can be compared with Piero della
Francesca’s Arezzo frescoes of the Adoration of the Holy Wood and Meeting
of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (1455–1456). It has often been observed
that Seurat’s nearly immobile ¿ gures in the Grande Jatte resemble those of
Piero in their stoic dignity and hints of otherworldliness. In fact, the chapel at
the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where Seurat studied, had copies of two of Piero’s
frescoes. It is not just Piero, however, but the entire Italian tradition, from
Giotto to Masaccio to Piero, that Seurat has revisited. From this tradition,
Seurat drew order and solidity for his painting.
Like other Parisian painters of the last third of the 19th century who drew
on Renaissance and Classical traditions, Seurat was applying their lessons
to modern subject matter. Looking again at the Grande Jatte, we see that
it suggests arrested time, a world held perpetually in abeyance, a sense that
was enhanced by the Pointillist technique. Because the paint dots have no