A Sunday Afternoon On the Island of La Grande Jatte

While browsing around recently, I came across a fun YouTube channel. It’s called “Spencer’s Painting of the Week” and includes brief explanations about many famous paintings, including Georges Seurat’s famous “pointillism” masterpiece.

I learned a lot from this 5-minute talk about the painting, such as the fact that it was included in the 1986 movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Among the things I didn’t know about this painting was its size. It is over 10 feet wide! The specific dimensions according to the Art Institute of Chicago are 6′ 10″ in height, and 10′ 1″ in width. That’s one very large piece of art!

Do you know how long it took Seurat to complete the painting? I didn’t, but this video talk gave me the answer. Because of the size and the pointillism technique, I can definitely understand why it took more than two years for Seurat to finish this masterpiece.

Another question I had was about the island itself. Yes, La Grand Jatte is a real place. It’s an island located in the Seine River.

A bit more browsing revealed that there were many other things about the famous painting that I didn’t know, including the fact that Seurat re-stretched the canvas a few years after initially completing it in order to add a border — made up of red, orange, and blue dots.

You’ll find more fascinating facts about the painting here: 15 Facts About A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.

Of course, the one thing we all know about Seurat’s most famous painting is that it’s an example of pointillism, using tiny dots of color that “blend” in the viewer’s eyes to create the various colors. It’s an interesting technique, and if you’d like to give it a try, you can find several very helpful videos:

Pointillism Techniques

Paint Like Seurat in 7 Easy Steps

Pointillism Tutorial

Seurat was not the only artist who used the pointillism technique. Others were Paul Signac, Henri-Edmond Cross, and Maximillian Luce. These were all artists in Paris who became part of the “Neo-Impressionist” movement. Other artists tried using pointillism during their careers — Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky and others.

Seurat’s famous painting of La Grande Jatte resides now at the Art Institute of Chicago, and I hope someday to visit and see this well-known work of art. To me, that would be a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

You can learn even more about the painting at the Institute’s website, which includes this information:

“Bedlam,” “scandal,” and “hilarity” were among the epithets used to describe what is now considered Georges Seurat’s greatest work, and one of the most remarkable paintings of the nineteenth century, when it was first exhibited in Paris. Seurat labored extensively over A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884, reworking the original as well as completing numerous preliminary drawings and oil sketches (the Art Institute has one such sketch and two drawings). With what resembles scientific precision, the artist tackled the issues of color, light, and form. Inspired by research in optical and color theory, he juxtaposed tiny dabs of colors that, through optical blending, form a single and, he believed, more brilliantly luminous hue. To make the experience of the painting even more intense, he surrounded the canvas with a frame of painted dashes and dots, which he, in turn, enclosed with a pure white wood frame, similar to the one with which the painting is exhibited today. The very immobility of the figures and the shadows they cast makes them forever silent and enigmatic. Like all great masterpieces, La Grande Jatte continues to fascinate and elude.

From – The Art Institute of Chicago

Without a doubt, the painting does fascinate and elude us, and maybe this accounts for its enduring popularity. I look forward to someday seeing this painting.