finished reading linda nochlin’s “seurat’s la grande jatte: an anti-utopian allegory” in which she talks about how george seurat’s “a sunday afternoon on the island of la grande jatte” (1884) represents the invention of visual codes for the modern experience of the city. notice the lack of interaction b/w the figures, the empty faces, the sense of alienation and joyless leisure. his technique (pointillism) also references modern industry, mass production and endless pictorial reproductions. the “dot” becomes the atomic particle of this new vision. with its use seurat consciously deprives the painting of any personal handwriting.
i find the perfect confluence of form and content to be quite amazing in his work. seurat was v prescient in how he assessed modern life. look at this other painting called “the circus” (1891) – so emblematic of what entertainment would become – a spectacle to be imbibed by a passive audience, a precursor of tv-induced mind-numbness or of political “performance” for that matter.