Slow Art Sunday - Seurat

This week for Slow Art Saturday, let’s direct our gaze to a summer setting (we can dream) and take a slow look at a beautiful Georges Seurat painting, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte”.  This lovely artwork captures a scene from a Paris park on the River Seine.

When art unexpectedly comes across my path as Seurat’s did this week, it seems like the right time to feature it.  Hooray RNB, for recognizing it from our 70’s childhood game of “Masterpiece”, which is weirdly no longer in production!

Seurat was a French artist who sadly lived a very short 31 years and died of an illness speculated to be pneumonia or meningitis. His young son died of the same disease two weeks later.  Seurat was known for developing the technique of pointillism which is a method of painting small distinct dots of colour to form the shape.  Seurat studied colour theory and practiced the use of applying opposite or complementary colour dots and letting the eye blend them together.

Let your eyes do the work of moving around the painting, wherever they go naturally – this one has so much to see.  If you look at it from a different angle or position, do you notice other details.  Of course, it could be tricky to get another angle on a phone screen so we might need to take a trip to Art Institute Chicago to see the original!  Check out the closeup of pointillism in action in the second photo.

Enjoy your summer day at the river.

#slowartsaturday #georgesseurat #a sundayafternoonontheislandofgrandjatte #pointillism #dots #complementarycolours #slowart #slowartflow #riverseine #impressionism