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Georges Seurat
French, 1859-1891
Eiffel Tower
1889
Oil on panel
Seurat painted this view on the new, ultra-modern, highly controversial Eiffel Tower before it was completed in the summer of 1889, prior to the opening of the Universal Exposition. Without its crowning platform, the top of tower dissolves into the sky. In shading his color upward from reds and oranges at the base of the structure to a lighter palette dominated by yellow, Seurat seems to have followed the scheme of iridescent colors with which Gustave Eiffel convered the tower in a paint of his own invention, further irritating detractors who found the new monument a gross expression of industrial power and bad taste.
Seurat sided with those who saw the tower as an exciting symbol of modernity. His small painting projects a strong and solemn impact, larely due to its iconic treatment of the tower. Using the so-called neo-impressionist or pointillist technique that he had pioneered, Seurat bathes the scene in a soft but vivid light created by the optical interaction of small dots of birght color. His viewpoint is low, across a foreground balcony or wall that provides a sturdy base for the composition.
Museum purchase, William H. Noble Bequest Fund,
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
1979.48
From the placard: San Francisco Legion of Honor Art Museum
www.youtube.com/user/mmdurango/videos To see the video of the moving lights on the Eiffel Tower taken from the Trocadero click on this link. Fabulous, and it was pouring rain earlier in the afternoon.
How sad is it that the only brandy we had in the house was novelty stuff we bought as a joke in Paris last year?
Good look at some of the amazing engineering in this structure.
You will notice that I did not shoot the usual photo lying on my back looking straight up the tower. This is because it's fenced off, for the same reason that you see the vertical metal structure over at the left center. The first level is currently undergoing major remodeling, and it is a construction site.
When we were there, only one of the three public elevators was operating due (it is said) to scheduled work on one and unscheduled mechanical failure of another. (The fourth pillar's lift is only for the restaurant).
This situation is supposed to be resolved by June, but we shall see. It caused the tours to be cancelled, and added to the already legendary waiting times. Of course, you can still take the stairs......
One more reason to go back to Paris.