Zoma: Blog 4

The present artwork is a painting, oil on canvas. It shows a circus. It was made during the post industrial revolution period (1891). Many changes had happened in human societies with the total revolution in technology. Cities were entirely created to respond to the need of industries and production. Populations were moving massively from rural areas to urban areas. A lot of changes did also happen in art. With the progress in technology, especially the appearance of photography, artists found new challenges. Some were trying to challenge the impressive realism in photography, by producing very realistic works, with the help of details and precision shown in photos. Other artists on the contrary were trying to distance themselves from the photographers, by merging with the abstract. Another change was the subjects of artworks which were trying to cover the new realities faced by the crowded cities. The actual artwork is one of those, presenting a circus which was one way of distraction for those crowded and dense cities looking for entertainment.

The colors used by the artist are warm colors (red, orange, yellow) in order to describe the intensity of the atmosphere in this spectacle. There is also a very interesting association with color and light. It looks like there is strong presence of yellow light, in the room, so that the reflection of that light on even the black costumes produces yellow; this is for the artist to emphasize the intense ambiance in the room. The same range of colors (red, orange, yellow) used by the artist to paint either the spectators or the performers, illustrates the communion in joyfulness.

The artist uses circular shapes to harmonize with the kind of movements performed in a circus.

We found also additional information about this artwork in Wikipedia. According to that source, the painting was Georges Seurat's third major work treating the theme of the circus. Seurat used a Neo-impressionist style, with dots, creating the sense of other colors. The work is dominated  by white and the three primary colors, mainly red and yellow with and blue shading. A deeper blue border painted around the edge of the canvas, merging into a flat frame in the same shade of blue.

The painting is divided into two spaces, with the circus artists occupying the lower right, characterized by curves and spirals creating a sense of movement, and the audience occupying the upper left, confined to rows of benches. The audience shows the distinctions between social classes sitting in rows, from the well-dressed higher classes near the front (sitting in the front row, in a top hat, is Seurat's friend and fellow painter Charles Angrand) to the lower classes in the gallery at the back.

A sense of space is created by the white face clown in the foreground, facing away from the viewer, and the tiers of bleachers. Another pair of clowns are tumbling to the right behind the ringmaster.

Seurat made few preparatory studies, concentrating on creating dynamic lines and using few colors.