Welcome to the Courtauld Collection In Detail, I am Karen Serres, Curator of
Paintings at the Courtauld and the detail that I'm focusing on
today is the vase of flowers in the upper left-hand corner of the painting
'Young Woman Powdering Herself' by the French artist
Georges Seurat
the vase of flowers with its folding frame stands out in this intriguing painting
for a number of reasons first of all it seems a little out of
proportion in relation to the rest of the composition
also it's very angular in what is otherwise
a sea of curves between the voluptuous sitter
the small vanity table in front of her the floral motifs and
the wave-like shadows on the wall. What's more, it's unclear what it's meant
to represent. Is it a window? A painting hanging on the wall?
or a mirror reflecting something in
the space...and finally it's painted much thicker
than the rest of the painting which makes the small
dots of colour that Seurat was famous for much more
difficult to discern
Seurat had learned the lessons of the impressionists
to capture light through colour but he had gone further, he wanted to develop
a systematic method called pointillism. He used a tight
juxtaposition of small dots of pure colour to model his
figures and his landscapes the dots were meant
to blend not on the palette or on the canvas
but in the viewer's eye which created a much more dynamic
image or so the theory went. In addition to 'Young Woman Powdering Herself'
the Courtauld owns several other paintings
by Seurat including 'The Bridge at Courbevoie'
that you see here, where he applied this approach for the
first time. You can see in this detail how he used
small dots to render the grass and the shadows
falling on it. Seurat was also very interested in colour theory
and how colours play off of each other and he liked to juxtapose complementary
colours such as blue and orange, as in this
detail to enhance their impact
one reason that the paint looks quite thick in this area
is that the vase of flowers may have been painted over another image
this is something that has long puzzled art historians
almost a century ago a critic and curator recounted the story that
Seurat had initially put his own portrait in place
of the vase of flowers but had painted over it
after a friend pointed out to him that it looked a little bit ridiculous
the anecdote seems almost too droll, no self-portrait by Seurat exists and indeed
he only created three dozen paintings in his short
career before dying at the age of 31 in 1891
he was also a very famously private artist and even the friend who made fun
of his self-portrait did not know that the the model the
sitter who was named Madeleine Knobloch
was in fact Seurat's partner and she bore him two sons
the story continues that when this friend found out about this relationship
after Seurat's death he bitterly regretted his
intervention.
But is the story true?
over the years x-rays were taken to try to penetrate the paint layer
to see if indeed there was anything underneath
the vase of flowers but these attempts were
unsuccessful but recently advances in image technology
means that conservators and scientists are able to get much more precise images
and also to separate the the distinct and
different paint layers. So, thanks to a scanner
developed by the Italian National Institute of Optics
it was finally possible to get a clear image
of the composition underneath the vase of flowers
it depicts, as you can see, a man whose long face and pointed beard
closely resemble one of the few photographs of Seurat
so not only is the anecdote true but we can expand on it
the figure is seated in front of a canvas and the long narrow object in his
hand is probably a paintbrush so
Seurat represented himself in the act of painting
and indeed the frame is supposed to be a mirror
allowing Seurat to be present in the same space
as Knobloch so instead of what has been sometimes perceived as a farcical
painting meant to poke fun at this imposing sitter towering over her
her dainty table young woman powdering herself
had in fact a very personal meaning for Seurat so who would have thought
that a simple vase of flowers could conceal and now
reveal so much. Thank you for watching and I hope that you will join us for the
next episode of 'In Detail'