The Elements of Art at Work

 

Title: A Sunday on La Grande Jatte

Artist: Georges Seurat

Created in France 1884/86 

Image hosted by: https://www.artic.edu/ 

    I first came across A Sunday on La Grande Jatte in middle school for an art elective. This piece was our brief introduction to the technique of pointillism. I wasn't very interested in this type of art at the time. It wasn't until I saw it again in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off that I grew curious about that painting. At first, it was a shallow curiosity about a pleasant setting. Now I see a small island on the river Seine at the gates of Paris. I see many different things that I find appealing. First, we had vibrant colors in the background but shaded tones in the foreground. I followed the bright colors to the shaded area, where we have people sitting, lounging, or even standing under the cool canopy. The darker tone of the colors invoked a feeling of tranquility, while the vibrant colors brought joy and excitement. 

  

    Next, I started to see a recurring pattern emerge throughout the painting. There are two groups of people found here. The first group does very little in the shade of trees or umbrellas. The second group can be found moving through the light, never stopping. Take the little girl just beyond the couple standing on the right of the painting. I see a young girl running to the rest of her friends/family, or the man playing his horn for all the nearby people to hear. Now we have many boats on the water moving across the lake. Here we are shown that pattern once again. The team is in motion under the sun. While their coach is in the shade of his umbrella watching over their team.

 

    I would also like to look into the texture of this piece. The pointillism technique has allowed this piece to come alive for me physically, especially with the aspects of nature. The first place would be the leaves of the trees. If I were to reach out to the leaves I wouldn't be touching oil on a canvas, but instead, be brushing through a branch of leaves rustling in the breeze. Followed by this are the blades of grass. We can see countless blades huddled together, land the slight variations in the density and shading of the colors. In the shaded area upfront, we have a man lounging on the grass in what seems to be a vest, bare arms nestled atop the blades. Just behind him, we see a patch of grass that is much dryer and nowhere near as vibrant as the surrounding area. Even as we follow that grass deeper into the painting we will see dark patches that seem longer than the lighter patches they are nestled within. Finally, I look to the water of this painting. Here we see not a perfect mirror-like reflection, but instead, a choppy surface with many little waves cresting and dancing across the surface. With the reflections we can recognize, we can easily see the distortion of this moving body of water.

 

    For me, this piece is such a beautiful combination of tone, color, texture, and pattern. I enjoy looking at the smallest of details for the chance to discover something I have never seen before.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

The Art Institute of Chicago. 2022. A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884 | The Art Institute of Chicago. [online] Available at: <https://www.artic.edu/artworks/27992/a-sunday-on-la-grande-jatte-1884> [Accessed 31 January 2022].