Georges Seurat
There is a really increible review of the new Chicago exhibition of Georges Seurat's La Grande Jatte, written by Holland Cotter in today's New York Times. I don't know if you can follow this link without signing up for their email service, but just in case:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/arts/design/20COTT.html?pagewanted=1&th
Here are two of my favourite quotes from the review.
"George Seurat was from outer space. One day in the mid-19th century, he was beamed, fully formed, down to Paris with a few cryptically perfect paintings and some of the most beautiful drawings you'll ever see. Later, age 31 in human years, he was beamed back up to wherever he had come from, leaving behind a few letters, a new kind of art and a big, spacey picture called 'La Grand Jatte.'"
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"In reality, of course, change happens, no matter what. In 1886, 'La Grande Jatte' made a big splash and changed French art. Seurat, the art school dropout, was a star. He went on to paint a few other things, jumpier, zanier, more obviously strange than this, but nothing as popular. In 1891, he was dead, probably of diphtheria, a disease of children.
Or at least he was gone from the scene, perhaps to join some other, empyreal scene, where he painted the Milky Way instead of the Seine. And can't you imagine 'La Grande Jatte' up there, too: a time capsule of a picture now doubling as a space-capsule, airtight, with its handpicked crew of Parisians still alert in their Sunday leisure, still not having fun quite yet?
Once clear of the stratosphere, though, they might relax just a bit. The black dog on the grass will stretch and yip. The girl in the center in white will smile. The woman with the bustle will give her little monkey a kiss, give herself a little shake, and give her partner the cold shoulder. She may be immortal, but she's up for something new. Her intergalactic dance in the dark with Georges is about to begin."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/arts/design/20COTT.html?pagewanted=1&th
Here are two of my favourite quotes from the review.
"George Seurat was from outer space. One day in the mid-19th century, he was beamed, fully formed, down to Paris with a few cryptically perfect paintings and some of the most beautiful drawings you'll ever see. Later, age 31 in human years, he was beamed back up to wherever he had come from, leaving behind a few letters, a new kind of art and a big, spacey picture called 'La Grand Jatte.'"
&
"In reality, of course, change happens, no matter what. In 1886, 'La Grande Jatte' made a big splash and changed French art. Seurat, the art school dropout, was a star. He went on to paint a few other things, jumpier, zanier, more obviously strange than this, but nothing as popular. In 1891, he was dead, probably of diphtheria, a disease of children.
Or at least he was gone from the scene, perhaps to join some other, empyreal scene, where he painted the Milky Way instead of the Seine. And can't you imagine 'La Grande Jatte' up there, too: a time capsule of a picture now doubling as a space-capsule, airtight, with its handpicked crew of Parisians still alert in their Sunday leisure, still not having fun quite yet?
Once clear of the stratosphere, though, they might relax just a bit. The black dog on the grass will stretch and yip. The girl in the center in white will smile. The woman with the bustle will give her little monkey a kiss, give herself a little shake, and give her partner the cold shoulder. She may be immortal, but she's up for something new. Her intergalactic dance in the dark with Georges is about to begin."