Seurat and the bathers

In Seurat and The Bathers the authors discuss the various choices Seurat made with regard to subject, format and technique in preparing this monumental painting. They relate Seurat's working methods - the preparatory oil sketches and drawings - and the painting's physical nature - colour, brushwork and surface - to his academic training, his study of optical theory, the development of his distinctive drawing style, and his early interest in plein-air oil sketching and impressionism. Stylistically, Seurat responded to the French tradition of monumental figure painting and also to contemporary artists, both Salon painters and Impressionists, arriving at a paradoxical but subtle new synthesis. Finally the authors consider the subject matter of the Bathers in relation to other nineteenth-century representations of middle- and working-class life and leisure activities in the Parisian suburbs, particularly at Asnieres.