The Art Service Industry, part 6

Seurat

But what of Herbert Reeds choice of objective artists. We find a few pages later he refers to Seurat as a genius and one who ‘gave precise expression to the idea of objectivity’

If we refer to the painting ‘an afternoon at La Grand Jatte’ a more stilted painting it would be hard to find, we find that the figures have no resemblance to the retinal image what so ever, the hands and feet are far too small, a tell tale sign of a lack of visual understanding. The sitting girl, centre holding a pose, shows no understanding of a head, again hands too small, no understanding of hair in visual terms, granted a very difficult area. The floating dog does not help the situation. The lack of visual understanding with regard to the trees or grass or any aspect of surface quality. The ladies hat, one of three sitting figures bottom left, the inability of the painter to produce the illusion of the flowers going around the hat indicates a very low grade ability and a fundamental lack of understanding of physics, even though Herbert Reed says that Seurat understands science. The hat, head, body and hands show a woeful lack of the understanding of the retinal image, anatomy, physics, proportion, drawing, modelling, surface quality, tone, the lost and found of the Impressionist, colour, the medium, structure, resolution, perspective, both linear and aerial and the inevitable psychological homunculus. This catalogue of short comings of this low grade artist is not aimed as a criticism of the artist but to describe the disparity between reality and what the art historian sees as objectivity.