Kiattipoom Survey Western Art Paper the Grande Jatte

8/12/2019 Kiattipoom Survey Western Art Paper the Grande Jatte

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kiattipoom-survey-western-art-paper-the-grande-jatte 1/17

1

Dialogues Across Arts:

Challenging Painting Reading with Musical Theatre Interpretation

By Kiattipoom Nantanukul

Dating back twenty-four years, in 1989, two interesting articles from visual art scholars’

perspectives about George Seurat ’s painting “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande

Jatte” or what has been usually called “the Grande Jatte” were printed by the Art Institute of

Chicago where the original painting is hung. Both articles came up with very controversial

argument on how the visual art scholars interpreted that particular painting. One is about the

appropriate innovative approach to read and interpret the painting at that time (1989).

Another discusses about dark anti-utopian world in the painting of Suerat .

This article is going to reconsider and challenge those two debates by creating dialogues

across different categories of arts, using contemporary musical theatre text “Sunday in the

Park with George.” The first performance of this musical on Broadway was in 1984, only

five years before the publishing of those articles.

“Sunday in the Park with George” was written by the veteran musical theatre composer and

lyricist, Stephen Sondheim and his collaborative friend James Lapine. It is one of only eight

musical plays that won Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Sondheim and Lapine collaboratively

interpreted and presented the meaning of this painting as the utopia and inspiration to pass on

the legacies of art from generation to generation. Furthermore, their major intention in

writing this book of musical was to reconstruct the life and work of George Seurat through

this major work. All of these arguments will show the examples of how the different and



2

cross-discipline interpretation can make the painting be alive in various perspectives and lead

to more painting appreciation. However, before reaching the argument, brief overviewing on

both 1989 articles will provide us clearer debates from those two visual art scholars toward

“La Grande Jatte.”

John House wrote the article entitled “Reading the Grand Jatte.” In the article, he emphasizes

on the importance of the approaches to the interpretation of the painting among 1989

academic views. At that time, he states that the historian cannot ignore the ways in which the

contemporary viewpoints affect the reading of the past. This is particularly relevant in

discussions of “the Grande Jatte,” because the object itself has irredeemably changed, not so

much through the evident discoloration of its pigment, but because it has become a

celebrated, canonical museum object at great remove from its origins as an experimental art

with small numbers of people who were interested in it. This kind of change must be taken into

the ways in which they inform our approaches to the picture. (John House 1989: 116-117)

House (1989: 117) also points out four issues upon which 1989 discussion of “the Grande

Jatte” has focused: the island setting, the people on it, its exhibition, and the critical response

to the painting. These issues are concerned with the picture's original contexts in two

different ways. The first two pass through the image to the notion of a reality behind or

beyond it, included the geographical site of the island and the social identity of its occupants

at a moment in time. The second two remain centrally concerned with the picture itself as a

medium and as a focus of debate that generated meanings.





4

In her article, Nochlin refers to Ernst Bloch’s “The Principal of Hope,” the magnum writing

of the German Marxist historian and philosopher, in the chapter entitled “Painters of the

residual Sunday, Seurat , Cézanne, Gauguin; Giotto's land of legend.” In that book, the

important part for Nochlin’s argument is where Bloch (1995: 814) says;

“…The real bourgeois Sunday, even as a painted one…is given in

Seurat's promenade piece…This picture is a single mosaic of boredom,a masterpiece of the longingly unsuccessful and distanced element in

the dolce far niente. The picture portrays a bourgeois Sunday morning

on an island of the Seine in the vicinity of Paris, and in fact: it now

portrays this solely in a scornful way…The result is bottomless

boredom, a petit-bourgeois and infernal utopia of distance from the

Sabbath in the Sabbath itself; Sunday proves to be merely a tormenteddemand, no longer a brief gift from the Promised Land. Such a

bourgeois Sunday afternoon is the landscape of painted suicide whichdoes not become one only because it even lacks resolution towards

itself. In short, this kind of dolce far niente is, in so far as it still has anyconsciousness at all, the consciousness of total non-Sunday in the residual

utopia of Sunday…”

This Marxist interpretation leads to Nochlin’s interpretation and the understanding of this

painting as the “Anti-Utopian Allegory.” The article magnified the detail in this painting

according to her anti-utopian argument by looking back to those utopianideas in the painting

before this work of Seurat . Nonetheless, Sondheim and Lapine have placed their musical play

in a very hopeful position after passing confusing situations in the play’s story. For them, this

painting creates a sense of hope and encouragement to the others.

To start the consideration across categories of arts, let discuss what Stephen Sondheim and

James Lapine was trying to do in their collaborative work? After ones have read the text, they

could be deeply moved by the musical book. They might found the sheer audacity of the idea

of the show amazing. It is basically a musical in which the first act breathes dramatic life into

one of the great works of late 19 th Century painting, “the Grande Jatte.” Then try to top act

one with a second act that takes place a hundred years later and deals satirically with the



5

contemporary art world and the goes on to chronicle the sadness of a young artist who has

lost his way in it.

In June 1990, Andre Bishop (2000: 566-567) one of the members in the Playwrights Horizons

said after he had worked on “Sunday in the Park with George” that a month or so after the

show closed at Playwrights Horizons, he flew to Chicago to go to the Art Institute where

Seurat ’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” hangs. He thought he

probably should have done this at the outset instead of at the end of the musical production,

because as he walked up the steps and got closer and closer to the treasured painting, he

finally understood what it was the two authors [Sondheim and Lapine] were doing. In front of

him, and massively so, was an extraordinary composition of shapes and colors and

brushstrokes that reflected “the work of a man obsessed with his art.”

If we read the text of the play, we can find that many important notions in visual art studies

underlie the work of Sondheim and Lapine. They work with full of materials, not just

watching than painting and using their imagination. This musical is based on the life and

work of the Neo-Impressionist painter George Seurat whose simplistic opening lines to the

musical “Sunday in the Park with George” introduces the audience to six fundamentals of

Seurat ’s artistic process. The collaborators bring to life the painted figures in Seurat’s famous

work, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” which serves as the impetus of

the entire work. This life size painting, intermingled with the scarce knowledge of Seurat ’s

personal life, provides an intriguing setting for the world of musical theatre to inhabit. As the

first line in the play, George says;

George : White. A blank page or canvas. The Challenge: bring order to

the whole. Through design. Composition. Balance. Light. AndHarmony. (Act I 575-576)



6

Throughout the play, the audience observes the character of George Seurat paint and are

immersed in detailed references to the pointillist technique, such as the alignment of the

artist’s text to his painting strokes and his lover named after the essence of the technique,

Dot . The music that underscores the action and drives the motives of the characters mirrors

the pointillist technique through its complexity of notes strategically placed together to create

a cohesive score.

They also take the audience to the Impressionists theories that were not attended to and

certainty could not compete with its new scientific opponent. They highlight the fact that

science was gaining power in this industrious society, which directly opposed the ideals of

the Impressionists with its calculated structure and laws that had little tolerance for intuition

and emotion. At the time of this emergence, the term “scientific” carried two very different

connotations. On one hand, to be “scientific” meant to be a modern freethinker viewing

humanity both rationally and optimistically. On the other hand, to embrace this “scientific”

movement was to be a godless destroyer of the established faith, order, and hierarchy of

France. (Chris Elaine Staggel 2006: 6-7)

In hopes to embrace the former connotation and defy the popular artistic establishment of the

later connotation, a new artistic movement was conceived. Departing from the inspirational

ideals of Impressionism, an alternative approach to painting was adapted that relied more on

methodical and scientific technique. This approach, owing its primary basis to

Impressionism, was named Neo-Impressionism. And George Seurat is categorized in this

movement. In the play, there is a scene when George is trying to describe Jules, another

artist, about his new pointillist technique.



7

Jules : George…I do not know what to say. What is this?George : What is the dominant color? The flower on the hat?

Jules : Is this a school exam, George?

George : What is that color?

Jules : (Bored) Violet.

(George takes him by the hand and moves him closer to thecanvas)

George : See? Red and blue. Your eye made the violet.

Jules : So?George : So, your eye is perceiving both red and blue and violet.

Only eleven colors – no black – divided, not mixed on the palette, mixed by the eye. Can’t you see the shimmering?

Jules : George…

George : Science, Jules. Fixed laws for color, like music.

Jules : You are a painter, not a scientist! You cannot even see

these faces!

George : I am not painting faces! I am –Jules : George! I have touted your work in the past, and now you

are embarrassing me! People are talking –George : Why should I paint like you or any body else? I am trying

to get through to something new. Something that is my own.Jules : And I am trying to understand.

George : And I want you to understand. Look at the canvas, Jules.

Really look at it.

Jules : George! Let us get to the point. You have invited me here

because you want me to get this included in the next

group show. (Act 1 629-630)

This short conversation is based on Suerat ’s use of color theory. The basis of optical mixture

is that if colors were placed together, the eye would mix the two hues to make another

resultant color. This theory is best explained and widely publicized by the French chemist

Michal Eugene Chevreul in his treatise “On the Principals of Harmony and Contrast of

Color.” In agreeing with Chevreul ’s work, Seurat hoped to demonstrate that juxtaposed

colors mix in the human eye more effectively than on the artist’s palette. Therefore, instead

of mixing red and yellow to make orange, Seurat placed red and yellow next to each other to

let the eye perceive orange. From visual art studies, it is interesting to note that Seurat never

mixed a color with another color that was not next to it on the color spectrum. He held true to

this method from the precise placement of colors on his square painter’s palette to the canvas



8

he created. He even went as far as to paint the frames of his pictures with complementary

colors adjacent to the colors on the canvas. His system of applying paint in isolated dots of

color upon the canvas to create a finished picture devoid of drawn lines or mixture meant that

any lines that the viewer perceives are a result of putting a line of yellow dots next to a line of

blue dots for the eye to mix and create the illusion of a line. (Chris Elaine Staggel 2006: 12)

In terms of developing the musical score, Sondheim’s compositional strategy mirrored very

similarly that of Seurat ’s process. Just as Seurat devised the figures in his painting by

combining many previous drawings and sketches of the figures he collected from the park,

Sondheim created many separate vignettes for the characters in the park. These characters

represented by the twelve tone chord that is found in the beginning of the score are the

primary figures featured in the painting: George, Dot, Jules, Yvonne, Louise, Nurse, Old

Lady, the Soldiers, the Celestes, Franz, Frieda, and the Boatman. In the song “Color and

Light,” (591-595) Sondheim presents his song in very fantastic way. We can imagine the

action of George on stage while he is coloring and pointing the color on the big canvas. He

understands and uses the theory of color and light.

[George]

“Order. Design. Composition.

Tone. Form. Symmetry. Balance.

More red...And a little more red...Blue blue blue blueBlue blue blue blue

Even even...Good...

Bumbum bum bumbumbum

Bumbum bum...

Red red red red

Red red orange

Red red orange

Orange pick up bluePick up red



9

Pick up orangeFrom the blue-green blue-green

Blue-green circle

On the violet diagonal

Di-ag-ag-ag-ag-ag-o-nal-nal

Yellow comma yellow comma Numnum num numnumnum

Numnum num...”

The development of the score and the conception of his musical numbers developed as the

composer took small segments of notes and combined them to compose motifs, for instance,

Sondheim uses those gibberish sounds to create the rhythm of Seurat ’s brushstrokes. These

various motifs represent the characters and themes in the story and when used in repetition

created the vast majority of the score. This is very like to Seurat pointillist technique in the

painting. And because of this idea, it makes this work of Sondheim so special and

meaningful.

The notion of anti-utopian idea in the painting by Linda Nochlin considers mainly at “Leisure

Sunday” of the bourgeoisie and this anti-utopia notion is what makes this painting of George

Suerat be unique among post-impressionist artists of his time. In Seurat’s painting, almost no

interaction between the figures is depicted. The articulate sense and the unique as well as the

full human presences are not there in the painting. The anti-utopian interpretation side argues

that this cannot be a representative of the utopian middle-class leisure Sunday at all. It is anti-

expressive, rejecting the notion of a hidden inner that should be externalized by the artist.

There is of course the characteristic of the classical utopia in the painting, such as

harmonious line, smooth and ageless bodies, a pleasing symmetry of composition, a

frictionless grouping of inoffensively nude or classically draped figures in a landscape of

Poussinesque unspecificity. Completely lacking is the social message we usually associate



10

with utopian discourse. This is rather a utopia of (idealized) desire. These elements, claimed

by some scholars, totally lack in the “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte.”

(Linda Nochlin 1989: 135)

However, in Sondheim and Lapine’s interpretation, both playwrights present give the lives

and background stories to each figure in the painting. These creative lives and stories

represent the various lives of bourgeoisie in France 1884 to 1886. The figures in the image

have their relationships which Sondheim and Lapine use the historical and social context at

that particular time to create. George Seurat in the play starts his dialogue by mentioning five

artistic elements that stay toward the end of the play. The five elements are design,

composition, balance, light, and harmony. These elements are basic elements in impressionist

painting. When character Seurat in the play states all these elements at the very first line, it

contains the idea that he keeps intentionally depicting the lives of people on Sunday, the

leisure day of people in the park along the Seine River.

For instances, when they create the life of an Old Lady and Nurse, their conversation is about

to critic the idea of holding “International Exposition” which, historical chronologically,

George Seurat has painted the “Eifel Tower” while it was being constructed.

Old Lady : Nurse, what is that? Nurse : What, Madame?Old Lady : (Point out front) That! Off in distance.

Nurse : The are making way for the exposition.Old Lady : What exposition?

Nurse : The International Exposition. They are going to build

a tower.

Old Lady : Another exposition…

Nurse : They say it is going to be the tallest structure in the world.

Old Lady : More Foreigners. I am sick of foreigners. (Act I 579)



11

Or when they start the life of character Dot, they start by talking about the taste of the

bourgeoisie in late nineteenth Century. As Dot talks to George

(The music coalesces into a theme, “Sunday,” as a cut-out of a couplerises at the back of the stage. George begins to draw, then stops

suddenly and goes to the wings and brings on a young woman, Dot.

She wears a traditional 19th

-century outfit: full-length dress withbustle, etc. when he gets her downstage right, he turns her profile, then

returns downstage to his easel. He begins to draw. She turns to him. Music continues under. Annoyed)

Dot : I feel foolish.

George : Why?

Dot : (indicating bustle) I hate this thing.

George : Then why were it?Dot : Why wear it? Everyone is wearing them!

George : (Begin sketching) Everyone…Dot : You know they are.

(She begins to move)George : Stand still, please.

(Music stops)

Dot : (Sigh) I read they’re even wearing them in America.

George : They are fighting Indians in America – and you

cannot read.

Dot : (Defensive) I can read…a little. (Act I 575-576)

The interpretation of the playwrights is not totally anti-utopian world according to Nochlin’s

argument where she mainly argued about the presences of the figures in the painting and the

mechanized characteristics of each figure. She claimed that in Seurat ’s painting, there is

almost no interaction between the figures, no sense of them as articulate, unique, and full

human presences. Rather, in these machine-turned profiles, defined by regularized dots, we

may discover coded references to modern science, to modern industry with its mass

production, to the department store with its cheap and multiple copies, to the mass press with

its endless pictorial reproductions. She then turned her argument into larger context by saying

that this work of Seurat has “a critical sense of modernity embodied in sardonic, decorative

invention and in the emphatic, even over-emphatic, contemporaneity of costumes and

accouterments.” (Linda Nochlin 1989: 135)



12

However, for Sondheim and Lapine, their conversations in the painting is there, even without

the face of the figures or they have no exact idea what they are talking. They create the

dialogue suitably for each figure in the painting. All of the figures have their own stories, as

the way Seurat painted this image by gradually collect the figures one by one or group by

group. They also have suggestive gesture in Seurat ’s painting which lead to characterization

in the musical play.

Let move back a bit to another argument raised by John House (1989: 127-129), Modern-life

Salon painting is only one of the contexts in which “the Grande Jatte” must be considered,

but it is a crucial one, since it was within this framework that such a monumental image of

contemporary recreation would have been viewed. Other questions can also be asked, about

the stylistic affinities of the composition, about its painterly technique, and about the avant-

garde context in which it first appeared. For original viewers who recorded their thoughts in

print, the formal language of “the Grande jatte” was inseparable from its social meanings.

This leads us to the argument about class of people (figures) in the painting. Actully, what

salon accepted at that time is not what Seurat intentionally presented in the painting,

especially the assumption that there are not only the bourgeoisie but also the lower class in

the front right of the painting who Sondheim and Lapine create this figure as “a Boatman.”

From the background information that Seurat is sometime referred as a “humble, laborious,

intelligent technician,” who come from the “sober lower middle class of Paris from which

issue the engineers, the technicians, and the clerks of industrial society.” Seurat derived from

the more advanced industrial development of his time a profound respect for rationalized

work, scientific technique and progress through invention. This might be one of the reason

that makes the labour class appear problematically among the middle class people on Sunday



13

in late nineteenth century, Paris. The role of Boatman in musical play is very interesting. He

is one of the close friends of character George in the play. He also plays a role as a social

critic as we can see from his monologues.

Boatman : (Laughing) People all dressed up in their Sunday – best

pretending? Sunday is just another day. I wear what Ialways wear – then I don’t have to worry…They leave me

alone dressed like this. No one comes near. (Act I 599)

Boatman : Sunday hypocrites. That’s what they are. Muttering and

murmuring about this one and that one. I’ll take my old dog

for company any day. A dog knows his place. Respects

your privacy. Make no demands… (Act I 600)

In the song named “Gossip” the Boatman sings about those women in the painting as

“…Over privileged woman, Complaining, Silly little simpering, Shop girls, Condescending

artists, “Observing;” “Perceiving”... Well, screw them!...” Even strongly middle class social

critique is very obvious in the play, it does not make the play stand in the totally anti-utopian

society in late nineteenth century. As House may debate on Nochlin’s argument that the

painting is still follow major elements in that period painting. Many of the painting’s themes,

according to House’s interpretation, were common in Salon paintings by the mid-1880s: the

world of fashion and the relationship between the sexes; soldiers and men smoking or playing

music; women, children, nursemaids, and pets. All were depicted out of doors, involved in

seasonal or weekend recreations such as taking walks, boating, or fishing. This is because of

a social history of art must keep in view the way pictures are understood in relationship to

other paintings or images. A picture creates, rather than reflects, a reality, and the initial

terms of reference of this reality involve other visual representations. (John House 1989: 117)

Furthermore, Sondheim and Lapine’s play also leads to the last song called “move on.” This

last song concludes the major theme in the play, although many problems affect your life and



14

your life seems unsuccessful, keep move on in your life. It is the notions of hope and

encouragement that cover throughout the play.

The last major arts-crossing dialogue is the argument from House that historically, one

painting is not enough to construct the life of the painter, and it is not fair to do that.

However, one major intention of the musical playwrights is to reconstruct the life of George

Seurat , including his personality and work. We can see this element throughout the play. The

character George in the play is reflected as a kind of dictated artist who is not easy to deal

with. His brushstrokes emphasize “the work of a man obsessed with his art” since the

thematic song of the play called “Sunday in the Park With George,” Dot sings about George;

[Dot]

“…Artists are bizarre, fixed, cold

That's you, George

You're bizarre, fixed cold

I like that in a man

Fixed, cold

God, it's hot up here

Well, there are worse things

Than staring at the water on a SundayThere are worse things

Than staring at the water

As you're posing for a picture

Being painted by your lover

In the middle of the summer

On an island in the river on a Sunday…”(Act I 580-583)

Moreover, Dot also has monologue addressing the life of George.

Dot : George taught me all about concentration. “the art of

being still,” he said. I guess I did not learn soon enough. George likes

to be alone. Sometimes he will work all night long painting. We fought

about that. I need sleep. I love to dream. George doesn’t need as much

as sleep as everyone else. And he never tell me his dreams. George has

many secrets. (Act I 591)



15

For his personal life, George in the play is interpreted as a high-ego artist who wants

everybody around him to be as exact as what he wants. Even in his work life, he is still a too

confident artist who, again “obsesses with his own work.” Whe George talks to Jules about

his innovative work, he say;

Jules : Your life needs spice, George. Go to some parties. That is

where you’ll meet perspective buyers. Have some fun. Thework is bound to reflect –

George : You don’t like my work, do you?

Jules : I did once.

George : You find it too tight.

Jules : People are talking about your work. You have your

admirers, but you –George : I am using a different brushstroke.

Jules : (Getting Angry) Always changing! Why keep changing?George : Because I do not paint for your approval.

Jules : And I suppose that is why I like you. Good to see you,George.

George : (Calling after him) Jules! I would like you to come to the

studio some time. See the new work…

Jules : For my approval?

George : No! For your opinion. (Act 1 614-615)

These conversations and monologues certainly were aesthetically created through

imagination of the playwrights. However, it is bases on the hard researching of the

playwrights. There are enough evidences from only painting to reflect the painter’s life and

his characteristic reasonably and believably from theatrical point of view although it has

caused the different interpretation and approach with some opinions from visual art scholars.

In conclusion, according to the work of Sondheim and Lapine, they create an optimistic

theme for the musical play and reasonably as well as meticulously find appropriate

characteristic figures in the play. This is opposed to Nochlin’s argument about the anti-

utopian allegory in the painting. In terms of the life and work of George Seurat , the

playwrights characterizes the protagonist of the story by considering and interpreting from



16

the painting itself and from the wide research in life and work of George Seurat which

provide a different point of approach by Jame House who concerned more about the

historical approach in 1989.

From all the discussion above, we realize that the making of dialogue across the categories of

arts is beneficial. Even though, from the musical theatre perspective, it may be arguable in

terms of authorship, it still give us a chance to look and read the painting deeper and more

thoroughly. This is a good sign of cultivating artistic appreciation. We might appreciate all

categories of arts more.



17

Bibliography

Bloch, Ernst. The Principle of Hope. Translated by Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice,

and Paul Knight. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1995.

House, John. “Reading the Grande Jatte.” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies.

14, 2 (1989), 114-131, 240-241. [Online]. From JSTOR Item: 4108746.

Retrieved February 24, 2013. Nochlin, Linda. “Seurat’s Grande Jatte: An Anti-utopian Allegory.” Art Institute of

Chicago Museum Studies. 14, 2 (1989), 132-153, 241-242. [Online].

From JSTOR Item: 4108747. Retrieved February 24, 2013. Sondheim, Stephen. Four by Sondheim. New York: Applause Theatre &

Cinema Books, 2000.

Staffel, Chris Elaine. “Portraying Pointillism: An Actress’s Journey Through Pointillism to

Define the Role of Dot in Sondheim and Lapine’s Musical Sunday in the Park

with George.” Master’s thesis, University of Central Florida, 2006.

Documents

Kiattipoom Survey Western Art Paper the Grande Jatte