gossamer veils

The Museum of Modern Art is having an exhibit of Georges Seurat's drawings, which I read about this morning. With conte crayon in hand I attempted to draw with no success. But it was enjoyable and I'll continue trying. When I showed Mom the drawing, she said, "I have no idea who that man is". I think that means she wasn't thrilled with my attempt. We're in agreement on that.

Below are some exceptional drawings by Seurat. From the New York Times: The quickness and the command of form, human and otherwise, that emerges from the sketchbooks dazzle in part because so little is known about Seurat. He died in diphtheria in 1891, after barely a decade of mature work. He was only 31. Even artists as famously transient as Raphael, Caravaggio and van Gogh made it to their late 30s. One who died younger is worth noting here: Masaccio, the 15th-century Florentine master credited with nailing down the vanishing point of one-point perspective, thus getting the High Renaissance rolling. Western painting’s ensuing exploration of pictorial space lasted more than three centuries, and Seurat’s art stands as one of its conclusions.

But as this exhibition emphasizes, Seurat first formulated his ideas about color and atmosphere on paper, in drawing, working in black and white. Applying his beloved black conté crayon to the specially textured Michallet paper that he almost always used, he created an impressive tonal range of velvety blacks, gossamer veils, crazy all-over scribbles, porous grids, methodical cross hatchings and uncrossed hatchings.

It could be argued that the future that Seurat helped create for pictorial space and figurative art did not really flower until near the end of the 20th century, when Conceptual art interrupted the linear march of abstraction and reopened all mediums to narrative. It is now more widely accepted that representation and abstraction can coexist within a work of art. Really, they can’t live without each other, and never have, as Seurat so sublimely affirms.



Seurat, Drawing His Way To the Grande Jatte, New York Times, 10-26-07