Seurat's Grande Jatte

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Seurat’s Grande Utopia Nicole van Rootselaar AHMS 1000 In Linda Nochlin’s essay she attempts to prove that one of Seurat’s most famous works, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, is anti- utopian. To illustrate her thesis, Nochlin recalls several paintings done before The Grande Jatte which convey an idealized past or an impossible perfect future and uses them to contrast with what she deems as Seurat’s sceptical view. Going on, Nochlin compares Seurat’s stylistic choices to those of other great artists of the time, making the point that through the mechanical placement of coloured dots, Seurat removes himself from his work, turning The Grande Jatte into a cold representation of modernity. Rather than portraying smoothness and youth, like the other great works that Nochlin mentions, such as Papety’s Dream of Happiness, Seurat utilizes pointillism. Nochlin believes that Seurat’s use of this technique dehumanizes the figures. Specifically mentioned is the wet nurse, who in practice sketches was systematically broken down until Seurat portrayed her as seen in The Grande Jatte. However, Nochlin does note that Seurat does not delve fully into cynicism, because he embodied hope in the figure of the running girl. Concluding her essay, Nochlin ties together all the points, and attempts to persuade the reader that Seurat is the only post- impressionist to have portrayed such alienation and anomie while depicting the rapidly changing society. While Nochlin brings up some thought provoking arguments, she fails to provide sufficient proof and uses weak examples to support her thesis. Throughout her paper, there are small inconsistencies which confuse the clarity of her point and extraneous information that is not as effective as she believed it would be. Upon completion, the reader feels that they have not been persuaded at all and in fact believe that

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