A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte

In Linda Nochlin’s “Seurat’s Grande Jatte: An Anti-Utopian Allegory” she advocates the anti-utopian message presented by Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The composition of her argument is threefold. By contextualizing Seurat’s vision of society among other utopian works by impressionists and traditionalists, Nochlin emphasizes the intentionally critical nature of La Grande Jatte. After establishing the work to be critical in nature, the argument is narrowed using critiques from Seurat’s time. The various critiques included emphasize the timeliness and pertinent nature of Seurat’s subject to the struggles and realities of French society in the period. To further solidify La Grande Jatte as anti-utopian, Nochlin presents works that succeeded those of Seurats to demonstrate how the uniform and anonymous repetition within La Grande Jatte was used as a platform on which later anarchist painters built upon in the 20th century.
The pointillist dot is interpreted to embody the transition towards industry, mass production, and modernization as a whole. That aspect, paired with he imminent color theory principals nestled within the dots further allude to modern science and formulaic composition. Unlike the impressionist’s broken brushstroke, Nochilin presents the pointillist dot as an expressionless medium. The nature of this anti-utopian work arguably lies in the perceived lack of temperament on behalf of the artist. Indeed, the restraint and uniformity of both medium and subject are they keys to establishing this work’s social