Some Aspects of the Development of Seurat's Style

• Published in: The Art bulletin (New York, N.Y.) N.Y.), 1941-06, Vol.23 (2), p.117-130
• Main Author: Goldwater, Robert J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Art nouveau; Art sketches; Cirques; Clowns; Cubism; Impressionism; Modern art; Silhouettes
• ISSN: 0004-3079; 1559-6478
• DOI: 10.1080/00043079.1941.11408768

The painting of Georges Seurat has suffered many critical vicissitudes. Since that day when Puvis passed the Cirque by, to its author's great disappointment, Seurat's art has been much analyzed. Originally viewed as a sort of belated and more orderly impressionist, Seurat was somewhat later valued for qualities of spatial organization and of composition that appeared to be very far from the earlier impressionist standard by which his painting had been judged. From the very start his name has been identified with the Grande-Jatte (Fig. 1), and with rare exceptions this canvas, undoubtedly his greatest, has been taken as a kind of criterion of what Seurat's art was striving for, and his other paintings judged in its light. This point of view does just honor to the Grande-Jatte, but it ignores two essential facts: first that the Grande-Jatte is, within the decade of Seurat's activity, an "early" canvas which, to conclude from his later evolution, did not necessarily represent the highest level of achievement; and secondly that Seurat's painting is not an isolated point suspended between an earlier impressionism and a later highly appreciative cubism, but is contemporary with, associated with, and undoubtedly influenced by a general movement in the painting of his own time. Seurat's art is far from being static, as his méthode, his deliberate system of painting, and even the tone of his first pictures might lead one to suppose. 1 On the contrary, it changes rapidly and profoundly. Nor must we forget that Seurat is the youngest of the four great "post-impressionist" figures. Born in 1859, he is twenty years younger than Cézanne, with whom he is so often compared in his transformation of impressionism, eleven years younger than Gauguin, and six years younger than van Gogh. It would thus not be surprising if his style should also bear affinities to those more nearly his contemporaries, and to the most advanced currents of his time. Others (and especially Rey, Barr, Rich, Schapiro, and Novvotny), 2 have touched upon these problems and made valuable suggestions concerning them; we wish to carry the discussion further. It is then the progression of Seurat's art, especially from the completion of the Grande-Jatte in 1886 until his death five years later, and its relation to that of his contemporaries, that we propose to study here.