Seurat

Implementing a new technique involving applying countless dots to canvasses to form images, Seurat was the precursor to the Neoimpressionists and the forerunner to the development of architecture and painting of the twentieth century.  The main staple of art before the Renaissance involved the manipulated control of the line, with linear drawings attaining an almost divine status.  Seurat removed the use of the line completely from his paintings, blurring the distinction between ground and subject, which allowed him to more closely approach pure abstraction than any other artist previously.  Previous artists such as "Delacroix and Manet, both of whom sought to dethrone the line from its exalted rank, found it indispensable for the creation of movement and plasticity in drawings" (19th Century Art, 276).  In contrast, Seurat employed the use of "varying densities in the distribution of light and dark dots (to) generate the boundaries that define figures" (Schapiro, 102-3).  

Compared to other famous artists such as Cezanne and Degas, Seurat was a complete artist by the time he was twenty-five.  Before he died, he successfully revolutionized Impressionist sketchiness yet maintained some the rigidity and rules of a classical style.  For example, in Grande Jatte Seurat paints his figures based on strict Classical rules ["heads are 1/7 the heights of bodies, and faces are turned precisely full frontal, 3/4 view, full profile, 3/4 from the back, or full back" (277)], yet the painting preserves the sensations and expressions of Impressionist ideals.

In the reading, the author of the second article discusses how Grande Jette is representative of the alienation of modern class society.  I understand his argument about the second painting (Chahut).  However, for the first painting, is it just the conflict between the stone-like figures of the people and the joy of the occasion?  I feel like there is more that I am missing beneath the surface.