Seurat and the making of "La Grande Jatte": viewers can "reassess the artist's unique status as a draughtsman, colorist, theorist, and 'painter of modern life,' as well as his talent in relation to his forebears and contemporaries."

TODAY, WE CHERISH Georges Seurat's "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte--1884" for myriad reasons: the enveloping magnitude of the visual experience it creates; the Variety of figures with whom we can identify; the innovation and courage of its departure from the practices and priorities of Seurat's contemporaries--all of which have ensured its prominence in the popular imagination over a century later. More than any other painting, it delights on many levels--from the general public of all ages, to the scholarly and scientific communities. Despite its familiarity, however, it remains enigmatic. The exhibition "Seurat and the Making of 'La Grande Jatte'"--with more than 130 paintings and works on paper--allows viewers to reassess the artist's unique status as a draughtsman, colorist, theorist, and "painter of modern life," as well as his talent in relation to his forebears and contemporaries.

A complete understanding of how Seurat (1859-91) arrived at the art that would be dubbed "Neo-Impressionism" has been hampered by the almost exclusive emphasis scholars have put on his interest in modern scientific color theories. For many years, it was assumed that the artist restricted himself to the three primary colors--for instance, pairing dots of blue and yellow that mix in the eye (at a remove) to form green, This is untrue. Seurat knew that light reflected by pigments does not behave exactly like solar or prismatic illumination, lie strove to understand the principles governing color and light, carefully studying books by scientists, then adapting their theories to his own particular goals and materials.

Another myth concerning Seurat's technique claims that his surfaces are regular, screenlike patterns of tiny dots or points, when in fact he used a variety of strokes from short dashes to larger daubs. Finally, the native Parisian often is described as a cold and calculating artist working in a mechanical and scientifically-derived manner with none of the spontaneity of the Impressionists.

This exhibition offers a more nuanced view of Seurat's relationship to modern color theory--one that takes into consideration his use of trial and error and the constant shifting of his approach in dealing with specific pictorial issues. While he certainly drew upon scientific theory, he did not allow his work to be dictated by it.

Seurat's career as a painter spanned less than a decade, during which he spent two years conceiving and completing "La Grande Jatte." To put him into the context of his own art as well as the vanguard of those to whom he looked for inspiration, it is necessary to examine this Frenchman's work from 1881-86 (beginning with his early efforts on paper). From the first days of his academic training in 1878, Seurat's lifelong interest in contrasts and harmonies is evident in his richly worked drawings executed in conte crayon. Following the tradition of Rembrandt van Riju, Eugene Delacroix, and, in his own time, Odilon Redon--artists who had mastered the technique of creating color with black and white--Seurat set figures into richly evocative backgrounds composed solely of nuances between lights and darks, a technique which would carry over into his work in color.

When he began painting, Seurat looked to the palette and subject matter of the Barbizon masters. Works from about 1882, like the small panel "Stone Breaker and Wheelbarrow, Le Raincy" show the mid-19th-century naturalist palette of subdued colors, but there is evidence of lively crisscross brushwork and a moderate use of color opposites as he became more aware of the works of the Impressionists, especially Camille Pissarro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and Claude Monet.

This debt to the Impressionists--the very artists Seurat would challenge in 188--merely is given lip service in most histories of modernism. It is fully recognized, however, in the exhibition, which features a carefully selected group of works by Pissarro, Monet, and Renoir, painters whom Seurat greatly admired. Artworks such as Monet's "Springtime on La Grande Jatte" (1878) and Renoir's "Oarsmen at Chatou" (1879) gave the younger artist lessons in the depiction of modern leisure; just as importantly, they showed him how to break up color into separate tints that excite the eye. Seurat's interest in and knowledge of Impressionist surfaces and subjects are highlighted in a mini dossier centered around the painted studies and drawings made for his first large canvas completed for exhibition, "Bathing Place, Asnieres" (1884).

At the heart of the exhibition is the visual laying out of the artist's working method for "La Grande Jatte," from its inception in 1884 to its first public appearance in May, 1886. (Seurat retained the inception date in the full title "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte--1884," or, in French, "Un Dimanche a la Grande-Jatte--1884.") Featured are nearly 40 paintings and drawings related to the final composition, ranging from rich charcoals to oil sketches on small wood panels to nearly full size painted studies. In their quantity, intricacy, mad variety, these preparatory pieces reveal a complex working process--with its roots in academic technique--and attest to the ',mist's ambitions for his self-conscious masterpiece.