Redtree Times

Georges Seurat- A Sunday on La Grade Jatte

I painted like that because I wanted to get through to something new – a kind of painting that was my own.

–Georges Seurat

Sometimes when I speak to schoolkids, they show me their work. The kids display an interesting mix of pride and embarrassment as they sometimes tell me that they don’t think their drawings or paintings are very good. I know that feeling well. I was those kids once, with an aim that far exceeded my ability at that point. A friend sent me an image from a 6th grade newsletter that had a drawing of mine from that time in it that had me gasping at how poorly I drew at that time. I think it was supposed to be Dr. J dunking a basketball but who could tell? It might have been Eleanor Roosvelt.

It was cringeworthy but it helped me in being able to tell these kids that where they are now is not where they will end up so long as they continue to practice and take small steps forward. You can’t judge a journey by the first steps on the path.

I thought I would share this post from about four years back that dealt with this idea of development and growth. Plus, it’s just a great way to share some good work from Georges Seurat.

I subscribe to a service that provides information such as auction results for artists, both living and dead. It is always interesting to scan the auction results for my favorite artists, to see how they are currently viewed by buyers. For example, anything by Vincent Van Gogh always draws huge money, even the work that doesn’t possess the signature brushwork and color of his better-known works. The iconic pieces, of course, go for astronomical sums. His popularity with the public is as strong as ever but that is no surprise.

It’s also interesting to scan the results to see work from artists other than their more famous paintings that hang in museums. We tend to think of artists by their best work and seldom see the complete chain of work that runs through their career, never really seeing their weak links or the developmental work that led to their signature style or voice.

The image to the right, Paysage Avec Cheval, a painting that recently went up for auction at Christie’s London, is a good example of this. It’s a lovely piece but you might not guess the artist. This is from Georges Seurat whose work, such as his most famous work shown at the top of the page, is forever tied to pointillism. But scanning through his records, you can get a better sense of the evolution of his work. [ Note: This painting of a horse, small at about 6″ x 9″in size, sold in 2014 for over $1.8 million which, while it is a large number, is a tiny fraction of what his better-known work sells for.]

I am also looking for consistency in the artists whose work I am scanning through. Again, we always think of the artists in terms of their best-known works and are often unaware of the totality of their body of work. Some artists are incredibly consistent, even in their early formative years. Others have high peaks and deep valleys, with a huge disparity between their best and not-so-best work. I am always encouraged by both types of artists.

I strive for consistency in my own work and am proud of the consistency of quality and style that has been established. But, of course, there have had dips and valleys in my work, particularly in the formative days of the early days.

At that time, I still thought of the great artists only in terms of their best works that hung in the great museums of the world, thinking that they simply got up and turned out this incredible work each day. I could not fathom the possibility that they had swings and misses, that they had periods of struggle and uncertainty. It’s encouraging to see that those icons whose work I revere often struggled in the much same way as me and that the great works we know them for were not created in a vacuum. They came with great effort and day after day of moving ahead in often small increments.

I think any aspiring artist who feels intimidated by the great works should take a few minutes to look through the whole of the works of their heroes. They might be encouraged, as I often have been, to know that the path they are on is not so much different.

While we’re here, let’s look at some of Seurat’s other work. It starts with a video that combines his work and the music of Vivaldi. It does a nice job of interspersing his earlier work with the work displaying the pointillist style that is so associated with him. Then the first two images below the video are examples of his earlier pre-pointillist work and then several examples of his better-known pieces.

[This is a mashup of a couple of posts from years past]

Georges Seurat- Les Terrasiers

Georges Seurat- Attelage Rural

Georges Seurat- Bathers at Asnieres, 1884

Georges Seurat- At the Circus

Georges Seurat- The Circus Sideshow