Seurats and Rousseau's painting - Admission/Application Essay Example

ROUSSEAU AND SEURAT Both of these paintings are extraordinary masterpieces. Both capture a moment of time in an indelible manner. The scale of both paintings is somewhat realistic. There are figures in both and both artists are French. There are however a number of important differences which must be properly noted. The Rousseau painting is much more romantic that the Seurat painting. The light is flatter. It is an almost dream-like sequence in a jungle. The colours are primitive and basic. The artist is showing us pure nature and asking us to breathe it in.

We see the animals and the naked savage who is also part of this scene. The scene is extraordinary in its embrace of nature. The sky looks beautiful and the moon is full. The flowers look like we could almost reach out and touch them. They are almost like museum pieces. Seurat’s painting is very different. It shows a social scene: People dressed and socializing on a sunny Sunday in Paris. Everyone is wearing their special costume. They carry umbrellas to protect their skin from the sun. While the savage is naked in Rousseau’s painting, everyone in Seurat’s seems overdressed.

The style of painting is different too. Seurat has painted points. In a way this shows the atomism of French society at the time. Even when people appear to be together they are actually apart from one another. Both painters were French geniuses. But the style and subject of both paintings is very different. We can learn a lot by comparing and contrasting the two paintings.