Exhibition Dates: February 17–May 29, 2017
Exhibition Location:
The Met Fifth Avenue
Galleries 964-965, Robert
Lehman Wing
Taking as its focus one of
The Met’s most captivating masterpieces, this thematic exhibition affords a
unique context for appreciating the heritage and allure of Circus Sideshow
(Parade de cirque), painted in 1887–88, by Georges Seurat (1859–91). Anchored by
a remarkable group of related works by Seurat that fully illuminates the
lineage of the motif in his inimitable conté crayon drawings, the presentation
explores the fascination the sideshow subject held for other artists in the
19th century, ranging from the great caricaturist Honoré Daumier at mid-century
to the young Pablo Picasso at the fin de siècle. This rich visual narrative
unfolds in a provocative display of more than 100 paintings, drawings, prints,
period posters, and illustrated journals, supplemented by musical instruments
and an array of documentary material intended to give a vivid sense of the
seasonal fairs and traveling circuses of the day. Among the highlights is
Fernand Pelez’s epic Grimaces and Misery—The Saltimbanques (Petit Palais, Paris),
of exactly the same date as Seurat’s magisterial work and, with its life-size
performers aligned in friezelike formation across a 20-foot stage, a match for
his ambition. Seurat’s Circus Sideshow will be on view at The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, from February 17 to May 29, 2017.
The exhibition is made
possible by the Janice H. Levin Fund, the Gail and Parker Gilbert
Fund, and an Anonymous
Foundation.
Circus Sideshow is one of
only a half-dozen major figure compositions that date to Seurat’s short career.
More compact in scale and more evocative in expression than his other scenes of
modern life—which he regarded as “toiles de lutte” (canvases of combat)—the
painting effectively announced the Neo-Impressionist’s next line of attack on
old guard turf, signaling a shift in focus away from the sunlit banks of the
Seine to the heart of urban Paris. Circus Sideshow initiated a final trio of
works devoted to popular entertainment and led the fray as the first to tackle
a nighttime setting with the benefit of his innovative technique, alternatively
called pointillism or divisionism (the former term emphasizing the dotted
brushwork, the latter, the theory behind separating, or dividing, color into
discrete touches that would retain their integrity and brilliance). It was his
singular experiment in painting outdoor, artificial illumination. The result is
disarming. In relying on his finely tuned approach to evoke the effects of
ethereal, penumbral light in this evening fairground scene of the Corvi Circus
troupe and their public at the Gingerbread Fair in Paris, Seurat produced his
most mysterious painting. From the time it debuted at the Salon des
Indépendants in Paris in 1888, it has unfailingly intrigued, perplexed, and
mesmerized its viewers. Seurat’s closest associates, seemingly dumbstruck,
largely confined their spare remarks to its novelty as a “nocturnal effect.”
The laconic artist never mentioned the picture.
Circus Sideshow depicts the
free, teaser entertainment set up outside the circus tent to entice passersby
to purchase tickets—known in French as a parade and loosely translated as the
“come-on” or sideshow. At far right, customers queue up on the stairs to the
box office. On the makeshift stage, under the misty glow of nine twinkling gaslights,
five musicians, a ringmaster, and clown play to the assembled crowd of
onlookers whose assorted hats add a wry and rhythmic note to the foreground of
this austere and rigorously geometric composition. As viewers, we observe the
show—as if from the rear of the audience, a part of the crowd.
Seurat took a raucous
spectacle that depended on direct appeal, the banter of barkers and rousing
music, jostling crowds, and makeshift structures, and he silenced the noise,
rendered the staging taut and ordered, hieratic and symmetrical, exquisitely
measured and classically calm. Enveloped by the hazy gloom of night, the
players and public are presented with the solemnity of an ancient ritual.
For all its uncommon beauty
and striking invention, Circus Sideshow courts conventions and associations
that were commonplace in representations of the parade. Throughout the 19th
century it had been a stock motif in popular print culture, notably for social
and political caricature, where it became an acute device for parodying
politicians, who like saltimbanques, are trying to sell something. During the
1880s, the parade subject gained ground: it was given a contemporary edge by
popular illustrators; it was painted with riveting descriptive detail by
artists who sought success at the annual Paris Salon with works that had broad
appeal; and it was mined, with spirited stylistic rivalry, by artists who
jockeyed for position in the avant-garde. In the 1890s, the great era of the
poster, the subject attracted a new wave of creative talents eager to establish
their reputations through success in the commercial world. The poster was
modern printing technology’s extension of the time-honored parade; both
functioned to pull the public into the show. The presentation brings this rich
illustrated history to bear on Seurat’s Circus Sideshow in a context designed
to elucidate the genesis of his composition and to puzzle out the sources and
parallels for his haunting and enigmatic work.
The exhibition is organized
chronologically, with Circus Sideshow at center stage. It will be displayed in
tandem with 17 works by Seurat that exceptionally reunite the painting with the
conté crayon drawings most closely related to his conception, including
preparatory studies, independent sheets that trace his exploration of the
motif, and the glorious café-concert drawings that were shown alongside the
picture at the Salon des Indépendants in 1888. The same venue featured Seurat’s
Models (Poseuses), now in The Barnes Foundation (and precluded from travel),
which will be represented in the exhibition by the gemlike small version
(private collection). This core group of works is seen with relation to
contemporaneous images of the Corvi Circus and the Gingerbread Fair, offering a
keen sense of time and place.
As the exhibition will
highlight, through loans from nearly 50 public and private collections,
Seurat’s choice of subject attracted a steady stream of artists in the 19th
century—from caricaturists, popular illustrators, and poster designers to
painters of like ambition—determined to make their mark on the Paris art scene.
Daumier, who set a powerful precedent at mid-century, is handsomely represented
by satirical lithographs, as well as pithy paintings and watercolors that chart
the saga of itinerant circus performers dependent on the fickle whims of the
public. His pace-setting imagery and initiatives find a recurrent echo
throughout the exhibition, which is punctuated by a veritable encore
performance in the cast of players showcased in graphic works by Henri-Gabriel
Ibels dating to the early 1890s.
The appeal the parade motif
held for Seurat’s Parisian contemporaries will be seen to great effect. In
addition to works by other vanguard artists, such as Louis Anquetin, Emile
Bernard, Pierre Bonnard, Jules Chéret, Louis Hayet, Lucien Pissarro, and Paul
Signac, or those on the cusp, such as Jean-Louis Forain and Jean-François
Raffaëlli, the presentation features recently rediscovered pictures shown in
the Paris Salons of 1884 and 1885, long lost from sight by artists little-known
today, as well as the unprecedented showing in the United States of Fernand
Pelez’s monumental Grimaces and Misery—The Saltimbanques (Petit Palais, Paris),
which was on view at the Salon of 1888, the same spring as Seurat’s brooding
masterpiece debuted at the Salon des Indépendants.
As a reminder that the
“show goes on,” the exhibition ends with early works by two artists who
continued to explore the parade and its timeless portrayal of the pathos of
comic spectacle well into the 20th century: Picasso’s moody nighttime scene,
Fairground Stall (Museu Picasso, Barcelona), painted on his first visit to
Paris in 1900, and Georges Rouault’s bravura Sideshow (Parade) of ca. 1907-10
(Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris).
Seurat’s Circus Sideshow
may be seen as the natural successor to exhibitions that have had as their
focus other great paintings by the Neo-Impressionist artist: Seurat and The
Bathers in 1997 at the National Gallery, London, and Seurat and the Making of La
Grande Jatte at The Art Institute of Chicago in 2004. The scale and scope of
The Met’s presentation have been tailored to vivify a painting that is smaller
in size and highly evocative in subject. The current one-venue show may also be
appreciated with relation to other recent projects, such as Cézanne’s Card
Players (2011), Madame Cézanne (2014–15), and Van Gogh: Irises and Roses (2015)
that have likewise furnished a fresh context for appreciating the heritage of
best-known and loved 19th-century paintings in The Met’s collection.
http://www.metmuseum.org/press/exhibitions/2016/seurat
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