Brettell's Social Class
7:00 AM |
| Georges Seurat, Bathers at Asnieres, 1884 |
 |
| Georges Seurat, A Summer Sunday on the Island of Grande Jatte, 1884 |
In Richard R. Brettell’s Modern Art, Brettell argues that Georges Seurat created a direct location link and painted social class division between A Summer Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte and Bathers at Asnieres. A Summer Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte includes Seurat’s famous strokes of dots technique. Seurat possesed interest with the social class of the Third Republic of France. He includes bourgeois (middle class materialistic) men and women. This painting also includes people of diverse ages. In this painting, both men and women appear. The upper class men and women’s clothing is proper, and their position remain straight and upright. The background displays and relaxing park. However, this painting has always been controversial. The fisherwoman and the women with the pet monkey have been identified as prostitutes because of their attributes. The women reading the book receives relations with the surrounding men. This painting scandalousness deepens because the prostitutes appear on a holy day.
Seurat’s Bathers at Asnieres displays different class, position, background, and activities than A Summer Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte. Rather than pastime, the males use the body of water for bathing. Therefore, all of the boys could be homeless or earn scarce income. In the painting, only men bathe. The gender and age of the subjects displays the working class of primarily adolescent boys. The position of the men appears laid back and casual. The setting shows urban details of factory smoke and railway tracks. This painting receives an everyday scene of poverty rather than a Sunday pastime. Brettell believes both paintings confront the difference of social class structure pastimes.
Seurat’s Bathers at Asnieres displays different class, position, background, and activities than A Summer Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte. Rather than pastime, the males use the body of water for bathing. Therefore, all of the boys could be homeless or earn scarce income. In the painting, only men bathe. The gender and age of the subjects displays the working class of primarily adolescent boys. The position of the men appears laid back and casual. The setting shows urban details of factory smoke and railway tracks. This painting receives an everyday scene of poverty rather than a Sunday pastime. Brettell believes both paintings confront the difference of social class structure pastimes.
Brettell argures Seurat’s Bathers at Asnieres is located directly across the river from A Summer Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte. The sailboat race acts as the clear link between the two paintings. Both paintings include identical dimensions and similar techniques. The bathers look east to the same Island. A adolescent male in the Bathers at Asnieres appears to call out to a person on the Island of the Grande Jatte. I agree with Brettell’s theory that both paintings focus on the division of social class. However, I believe that Seurat drew inspiration from his first painting, and there’s no direct location link between the two paintings. Although Seurat painted Bathers at Asnieres before A Summer Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte, the painting with upper class men and women receives more praise and popularity, even decades later. I think it’s interesting that the painting with the higher class receives more praise, despite the fact that the two paintings use identical techniques.
0 comments