Seurat's Surface Pattern and Subject Matter

Abstract

Ever since it was first exhibited, Un dimanche après-midi à l'île de la Grande-Jatte (Fig. 8) has aroused as much comment for its geometrical design as for the divisionist technique in which it was executed. Its figures were called “wooden puppets” or “toy soldiers,” the composition “Egyptian” or “Gothic,” but also “dusty” and “lifeless.”¹ The rigor of the design was correctly assessed as being just as startling an innovation as the dot. According to Schapiro “… this rigor cannot really be demonstrated or verified completely; it is only our sentiment or conviction of unity and perfection which we exaggerate into a judgement of ‘rigor.’”² In this article we will analyze some of Seurat's compositional devices and try to show that the rigor is at least partially demonstrable.