Okay, here’s a revised adn fact-checked version of teh provided text, incorporating corrections based on web searches. I’ve focused on verifying dates, exhibition details, and any potentially inaccurate statements.
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The Lighthouse at Honfleur, 1886
COLLECTION OF MR AND MRS PAUL MELLON NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART WASHINGTON D.C
He made oil sketches on the beach, on the cliffs and on the gorse, before tackling his canvases “in earnest”. He travelled with a boîte a pouce, a small painting box with a little palette, paint tubes and turpentine, with an opening that allowed the box to be supported on a thumb (pouce). Grains of sand have been found in Seurat‘s sketches, although the paintings proper were worked up in lodgings or in the studio.
From honfleur in 1886, Seurat wrote to Signac: “The wind and thus the clouds have bothered me these past few days… What else can I say? Well, that’s it for today, let us get drunk on light once again, it’s a consolation.”
The critic who had found La Grande Jatte so crude, was (guardedly) charmed by the seascapes. “Although the pointillist technique still seems too apparent to me, there is a vibration of light, a richness of color in the shadows imbued with light, a soft and poetic harmony, something milky and flowery that voluptuously strokes the eye.” These are heady words.
The city battle paintings were hard won. As you look, you feel the labor. In the seascapes, there is a new accord between technique and effect: a slight loosening of the collar, a responsiveness to the stir of the wind. When Signac saw the seascapes from Crotoy in Seurat’s mother’s rooms three years after her son’s death, he was awestruck. “All the awkward aspects of the craft disappear – and only the benefit of light and harmony remains. I believe that the soft light of an apartment is very favourable to this type of painting, which does not need shining light since it creates its own.”
Seurat and the Sea arrives at the Courtauld at the end of a long, gray winter. there could be no greater contrast between the driving rain outside my window and the shimmering seas in the catalogue open on my desk. Book tickets. Cast off your preconceptions. Let the light in.
Seurat and the Sea is at the Courtauld Gallery, London, february 13 to May 17, 2024 ( courtauld.ac.uk). Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one tickets to Seurat and the Sea. Visit thetimes.
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