Lorenzo Da Lio classe 1^C SO

A SUNDAY AFTERNOON ON THE ISLAND OF LA GRANDE JATTE

One of my favorite pictures is A

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la
Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. It is
located in the Museum of Modern
Art in New York.

Seurat was born in Paris in 1859. He

spent over two years to paint this
beautiful picture: he sat in the
islands park, creating lots of sketches
of the figures to perfect their form, so
every detail is carefully planned. The
painting is about 2 by 3 meters in size.

The painting represents people who spend the Sunday afternoon on the island
of the Grande Jatte to relax by the river. The Grande Jatte is an island in Paris,
lying in the river Seine. There are in particular some of the characters who are
doing something. On the foreground the lady has a monkey on her right hand.
The other lady on the left near the river bank is fishing. In the painting's center
stands a little girl dressed in white near her mother, who stays under an orange
umbrella. At the bottom, on the left, I can see two men (one is smoking a pipe)
and a woman, and in the distance other women and men too, who are laying on
the grass, under the big trees shadows. Theres also a black dog. In the
distance theres another man, who plays a horn and behind him two soldiers. In
the left corner Seurat paints the river Seine, where there are some boats.

I particularly like this picture, because the artist uses the technique of the
dot, called pointillism, which I think is a fascinating technique. Seurat is able to
obtain very defined shadows; moreover placing dots of different colors one
close to the other, he is able to create very nice soft colors, which make me feel
relaxed, happy and refreshed.

This is a realistic and impressionistic picture, which shows a landscape

environment near a river.