Title: Seurat and the bathers
First published: 1997
Description: In Seurat and The Bathers the authors discuss the various choices Seurat made with regard to subject, format and technique in preparing this monumental painting. They relate Seurat's working methods - the preparatory oil sketches and drawings - and the painting's physical nature - colour, brushwork and surface - to his academic training, his study of optical theory, the development of his distinctive drawing style, and his early interest in plein-air oil sketching and impressionism. Stylistically, Seurat responded to the French tradition of monumental figure painting and also to contemporary artists, both Salon painters and Impressionists, arriving at a paradoxical but subtle new synthesis. Finally the authors consider the subject matter of the Bathers in relation to other nineteenth-century representations of middle- and working-class life and leisure activities in the Parisian suburbs, particularly at Asnieres.
Subjects: Exhibitions, Beaches in art, Expositions, Bains de mer dans l'art, Plages dans l'art, La baignade à Asnières (Seurat), Catalogues d'exposition, Bathers, Asnières (Seurat, Georges), National Gallery (Great Britain)
People: Georges Seurat (1859-1891)