Seurat's Light

“’The [writers and critics] see poetry in what I do. No. I apply my method and that is all’” (280). George Seurat, a famous Pointillist painter, denied all accusations of placing intellectual cognition onto a canvas for his many works of art. As mentioned in the essay, “Mass Culture and Utopia: Seurat and Neoimpressionism,” Seurat was all about “harmony” in art, which is why he used an interesting technique of placing several tiny dots in close proximity contrasting colors, values, and lines. Seurat, like the other Neoimpressionists, also sought to somehow portray “idleness, quietness, and pleasure” in the modern society, particularly in the French working class (280). It was interesting to note that the way Seurat showed individuals, take for example the girls dancing the Can-Can, happy and content with a job that downright degrades them as women. In Chahut, the men and women are shown almost proud and content with their work as being entertainers demonstrated by the smiles on their faces, the upward tilts of their chins, and their unique postures. But their gaiety is not only projected by their body language, Seurat brilliantly figured out a way to emphasize happiness by incorporating “high luminosity, warm hues, upward pointed angles and accents” (284). Seurat had a way of shining light on objects hidden in the darkness by the modern mass culture. Knowingly or not, he bravely posted questions and thoughts in viewer's minds about what exactly is going on in this seemingly all pleasant modern world.