Monet's Grand Decorations Effects

Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko, Green, Blue, Green on Blue, 1968

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 2007

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 2007

Claude Monet - Water Lilies Series

Claude Monet, Waterlilies and Japanese Bridge, 1899
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Monet spent the last thirty years of his life painting waterlilies in different compositions, a series of 250 paintings.  He recreated himself thorough the same motif over and over again.

Claude Monet, Waterlilies, 1897-1899
(Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

The pond for aquatic plants with the Japanese bridge in the paintings did not exist till Monet built it himself on the land next to his home in Giverny.  He wrote to the town for permission "...to build this garden as a pleasure to the eye and as a motif to paint."

Claude Monet, Water Lilies,1906
(Art Institute of Chicago)

In the earliest of these paintings, Monet used a traditional composition with the bridge, a point of view where the viewer would would be standing at the edge of the pond looking out into the depths of the landscape that is blocked off in the distant by trees.
By 1906 he was not so concerned with the landscape and he did not even incorporate the bridge, he just painted the waterlilies and their reflection in the water.
There was no horizon and the viewer would be hovering over the pond, seeing the sky reflected on the water as well as the depths of the water.

Claude Monet, The Waterlily Pond (The Clouds,) 1903
(Private Collection)

In some of the paintings, the reflections of the willow trees can be seen on the water's surface. When looking at the garden that is setup to look exactly as it was in Monet's paintings, it is easy to see these were accurate representations based on Monet's visual experience.

By this time Monet was a very famous and respectable artist and had many friends who came out to visit him in Giverny.    Also an artist's colony had come into being in the area, full of painters who wanted to meet Monet and paint  his garden.  He associated with only people of his choice and this gave him the reputation of being a hermit. He was the architect of his public and private life as well as his landscape.  Monet was an avid botanist who constructed his own landscape in order to recreate it in his paintings.

In order to integrate the viewer into the paintings, Monet stared to think about scale. His paintings got bigger to 6' x13'.  The viewer was brought into the landscape like they were hovering above the lake. He wanted to create a meditative experience where the viewer would be engulfed by the paintings. His dream was to build an architectural space to install his series as a series.  He worked on 40 panels with 8 compositions.  He built a new studio where he could assemble sliding easels.  He called this project Grandes Decorations. He conceived them as a group, painted them as a series and worked on them bit by bit building them up and reworking them until he captured effects he wanted.

Claude Monet, Waterlilies, Green Reflection (detail of the left side of the panel)1916-1923
(Musee de l'Orangerie)

Installation view of Claude Monet, Waterlilies, Green Reflection 
(Musee de l'Orangerie, Paris)

Monet used a lot of complementary colors he loved from his earlier paintings in these panels.  The brushwork defined the subjects he painted; while clouds were dissipating swirls, the waterlilies were solid colors. His work from this time is considered to be the beginning of abstraction post World War I. He had cataracts and some people attribute the abstractness of the works to his eye problems.

The French government bought his panels to install in the Musee de l'Orangerie in two circular rooms with skylights, hung relatively low.  Monet died before seeing his panels hung low and directly on the curving walls according to his wishes.

Installation view of Claude Monet,  The Grandes Decorations
(Musee de l'Orangerie, Paris)

"I was once briefly tempted to use water lilies as a sole decorative theme in a room. Along the walls, enveloping them in the singleness of its motif, this was to have created the illusion of an endless whole, of water without horizon or shore. Here nerves taut from overwork could have relaxed, lulled by the restful sight of those still waters, and to whosoever lived there, the room would have offered a refuge for a peaceful meditation at the center of a flowering aquarium. Imagine a circular room, the dado below the wall molding entirely filled with a plane of water scattered with these plants, transparent screens sometimes green, sometimes mauve. The calm, silent, still waters reflecting the scattered flowers, the colors evanescent, with delicious nuances of a dream-like delicacy." 


                                                                                                                        -  Claude Monet

Claude Monet - Rouen Cathedral Series

                                        
                                                "Monet causes that even the stones come to life."

                                                                 -  Georges Clemenceau

                                                 

As a way to take Impressionism to the next level, Monet had started to do studies on the effects of light and atmospheric changes on the form and color of a specific subject.  He started this quest with the 1886 Belle Isle paintings where he worked on the same motif from perspectives with very few variations.  His later Grainstacks Series from 1890-1891 and Poplar Series from the spring, summer and fall of 1891 were more calculated and focused works, painted several canvases at the same time, with an intention towards being exhibited as a series, together.  After his Poplars Series, Monet wanted to start to work on  another motif.  For his new Series he took an architectural subject and represented it's facade in over 30 canvases, during different times of day and weather conditions, Rouen Cathedral.  

The Cathedral was one of the major monuments of Gothic architecture,  a style that started in France and then spread throughout the rest of Europe in the Middle Ages.  In this aspect, the paintings can be looked upon as a praise to French history and culture.  Monet was again, touching upon nationalism.

The dating for this series is a little confusing since he did two campaigns in 1892 and 1893, that he started in the winter when it is difficult to paint outdoors, from the window of rented rooms directly opposite the Cathedral and finished them by 1894, in his studio back at Giverny.  He worked on several canvases at the same time, moving from one to the next with the changes of the sun  and the weather.  By representing the facade of the building without any depth, it became just a backdrop to best capture the light and atmosphere emanating around the building. He did not even try to represent any of the details like the sculptures on the facade of the building, he just wanted the effects of air and light.
Monet used color to unify the paintings; the color lavender can be picked out in most of the canvases.

This was a very challenging project and he was distraught while working on the paintings.  He worked on several canvases simultaneously that he had setup in front of his window and  the changing weather and light conditions were causing him to  move from one canvas to the next.  He complained to his wife and dealer about the weather and how he had set himself up for an impossible situation.  Part of the reason he was having such a difficult time finishing these paintings might have been due to the events that were going on in his personal life. He had gotten married to Alice Hoschede in 1892 after both of their spouses had passed away and they had been living together since 1878 as an extended family - Monet had two children from the late Camille and Alice had six from her first husband.  He had also bought the house in Giverny.  But Monet's unrelenting obsession led him to finally finish the series and achieve instantaneous success with the the critics and collectors as soon as they were exhibited.  He was able to buy the land and the house in Giverny and build his studio and famous gardens from the sale of his series paintings.

Monet had conceptualized and exhibited the Rouen Cathedral paintings as a series. He was very disappointed that he couldn't sell them as a group.  As a result they are actually dispersed throughout different museums all over the world from Musee d'Orsay in Paris, Art Institute of Chicago to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  One of the best ways to experience the whole concept of what Monet had accomplished and see the works in its entirety is to look at a project Colombia University Visual Media Center has worked on http://www.learn.columbia.edu/monet/swf/ .

  

Claude Monet - Poplars Series

Claude Monet, Poplars Along the River Epte, Autumn, 1891
(Private Collection)

Claude Monet, Poplars (Autumn), 1891

Claude Monet, Poplars, Four Trees, 1891
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Throughout the spring, summer and fall of 1891, Monet worked on his other famous series 'The Poplars,' some overlapping with his Grainstacks series.  He made 24 paintings of Poplars, which was known as the tree of freedom, symbolic of prosperity and fertility of France but also nationalism.  There were  three types of groups for these paintings -first group was three poplars with an 'S' curve in the back; second group was a lot of poplars with an 'S' curve; third group were poplars with their reflections.
    

Claude Monet, Poplars (Wind Effet) 1891
(Private Collection)

Previously In Argenteuil, Monet had encountered poplars, trees that were planted 8' apart single file, so that they would grow tall and not sideways into each other. They were planted in a marsh by the River Epte, which was very close to Monet's house in Giverny.  Monet painted the trees from his studio-boat that was moored by the trees, which he reached with a small boat he borrowed from Caillebotte.  Before he was finished with his paintings the town wanted to auction and sell the trees, so in order to continue, Monet bought the trees and then sold them after he was finished with them to a lumber merchant.

The S- curve that was outlined by the top of the trees in the background was a crucial element in these paintings, not only did it add motion to the image but also the S-curve had associations with the Rococo.  Ingres had used the S-curve in his female figures for beauty and grace. Monet and his audience at the time would, of course, recognize this which caused some critics and artists to disapprove of the Poplars Series as too pretty and too decorative. But at the end of 19th century, decorative was favorable and they sold really well.  Viewers actually loved these paintings because of the S-curve and the decorative aspect which reminded them of France's dominance during the Rococo period.

Claude Monet, Poplars on the River Epte, 1891
(Philadelphia Museum of Art)

A Decorative Arts museum was built in Paris around 1882 and there was a reawakening to the need to reinforce France's superiority in the decorative arts, which had peaked in the 18th century.  Monet may be reclaiming this dominance through his Poplars.

Monet's concern regarding the Poplars seems to be parallel to the Grainstacks, in that there is more to them than just the effects of light and atmosphere on a landscape. They are also about community, nationalism, France's dominance and the prevailing taste that appealed to a wide audience - helping to secure Monet's position as one of the most dominant artist of his time and add to his prosperity.

                   

Claude Monet - Grainstack Series

Claude Monet, Haystacks at Chailliy at Sunrise, 1865
(San Diego Museum of Art)

Monet revisited the subject of his earlier painting, Haystacks at Chailliy from 1865 when he began working on his Grainstack series.

Claude Monet, Grainstack, Sun in the Midst, 1891
(Minneapolis Institute of Arts)

He was living back at Giverny in 1890 and was going out everyday to paint in the fields that surrounded his house.  This was a very familiar landscape, right outside his door.  The Grainstacks were 20 x 18' high man-made structures that were used to store wheat. It sometimes took a whole year to break them down, which was a great convenience for Monet.  He painted 25 canvases of the same motif with very little variations - some are one and some are two grainstacks - except for the light, weather and atmospheric effects.  He would set up a couple of easels next to one another and work on several canvases at the same time.

Claude Monet, Grainstack Snow Effect, 1891
(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

Claude Monet, Grainstacks at Sunset, Snow Effect, 1890
(Art Institute of Chicago)

Claude Monet, Grainstacks in the Sunlight Midday

Claude Monet, Two Grainstacks at The End of The Day, Autumn
(Art Institute of Chicago)

Grainstacks were monumental subjects on the landscape symbolizing fertility and prosperity; they were directly associated with the French countryside.  Monet was rendering the light and air surrounding the object, its distinctive light and atmosphere, this, he referred to as 'enveloppe.'  The subject became secondary to the colors and effects.  He was trying to capture air and light with paint.  It is relatively easy to decipher what he is trying to accomplish in the Grainstacks at Sunset, Snow Effect - the same blue used in the surroundings is picked up in the Grainstack, breaking down the barrier between the figure and ground. Monet captured the haziness that surrounded the figure. In these paintings, Monet's love of the French countryside, deep admiration for nature and his distinctive individualism all come through in eloquent simplicity. 1


1  Paul Tucker, Monet and the Challenges to Impressionism in the 1880s

Hokusai, 36 Views of Mount Fuji, 1826-1833                              

ukiyo-e Japanese Woodcut Prints Monet was aware of these prints and he owned a couple of them.  He was probably influenced by the idea of taking one subject and going over and over it with variations.  

                                         

Claude Monet - Gare St. Lazare

Claude Monet, Self-portrait, 1886

For Monet, the 1880's were a time of contemplation, doubts and a search for new avenues for his art.  He wanted to broaden his horizons, be able to reach new markets outside of Paris, find new avenues for the representation of nature caught in the transient moment and indulge his wanderlust.  There was also the issue of Georges Seurat and his followers who were trying to change the direction of the avante-garde art movement.  Monet was a well-known artist who had made a reputation for himself and wanted to go on pursuing new goals and taking Impressionism to the next level. This self-portrait with the furrowed brows and askance expression Monet painted around this time, seems to visualize his self-questioning.




Monet had to reassert Impressionism as the leading avant-garde style and reinforce his position as the leader of the modernist movement.  In order to do this, he set himself with very taxing goals and traveled in search of new places to paint and capture the light illuminated off these new landscapes.  His search led him to concentrate on specific sites and the differing conditions of  atmosphere.  At this time he started to paint the same landscape from different aspects that the critics started to call his series paintings.  But preceding his series paintings, Monet had already been thinking of making multiple paintings of the same subject when he had painted The Gare St Lazare ensemble in 1877.   These 12 painting were done over time and not meant to be exhibited together.  He had rented an apartment nearby and was given permission to paint by the train tracks.  He would start his paintings on site and then finish them in his studio.  Although these were focused extensively on one motif, they were differing perspectives some showing the trains under the shed, some showing the building behind the shed and in some smoke covering and rendering the shed invisible.  Some could even be classified as an interior space while others had the outside and inside feeling at the same time.

Claude Monet, The Gare St-Lazare, 1877
(National Gallery, London)

Claude Monet, The Gare Saint-Lazare:  Arrival of a Train, 1877
(Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Claude Monet, Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877
(Musee d'Orsay)

Claude Monet, Le Pont de l'Europe, Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877
(Musee Marmottan-Claude Monet, Paris)

                                                  http://smarthistory.org/france-1848.html

From studying a site in detail and painting it from different points of view, Monet would go on to paint the same exact site from the same exact point of view making the subject secondary to the effects of atmosphere in his Grainstack Series.

Impressionist's Response to Seurat's Pointillism

Georges Seurat began his career as an impressionist concerned with the effects of light but later went on to reform it and approach Impressionism in a whole new perspective, as a result of which being referred to as a Neo-Impressionist.  He incorporated scientific theories into his art and surpassed the momentariness of his contemporaries and built canvases that would recall the treasures of the past from the art of the  Egyptians to the friezes of the Parthenon.  Some people loved his work while a lot of the Impressionists despised it.  His stilted, frozen figures were severely criticized by Monet who went on to paint a series of paintings as a response to Seurat to get beyond Impressionism.

Camille Pissaro, Apple Picking, 1886
(Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki, Okayama, Japan)

Pissaro, on the other hand embraced Seurat's Pointillism and announced that Impressionism had become rancid, too romantic, stale, old and dried up.  He incorporated Seurat's technique into classical Pissaro subject matter in Apple Picking from 1886.

Camille Pissaro, The Boulevard Montmarte on  a Winter Morning, 1897
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)

But by 1897, after working in this manner for a couple of years, he was back to the Impressionistic style because he realized Seurat's style was too static.  Pissaro thought that it was not possible to capture the momentariness, the colors or the effects of Impressionism with Pointillism.

Monet and Renoir were especially upset with Seurat's work.  Claude Monet who had not done much of figure painting since his earlier days, suddenly did monumental figures in landscapes.  He found Seurat's figures too static so he painted figures full of dynamism with everything in motion as a response to A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.  He achieved this by color, using oranges, yellows and blues, plus with his vigorous brush work.  The clouds are moving, the grass is swaying, the figure's dress and scarf is fluttering in the wind.

Claude Monet, Study of a Figure Outside:  Woman with a Parasol Turned to the Left and Turned to the Right, 1886

                 These paintings are Monet's critique of Seurat's figures in A Sunday at Le Grand Jatte.

Around this time Monet had decided to broaden his and Impressionism's horizons outside of just Paris and its environs.  He traveled out to different regions of France and painted numerous canvases on subjects of his interest - weather and light effects, clouds, crashing waves - the drama of nature. As he traveled throughout the country to Etrerat, Grand-Camp, Belle Ille, and Antibes, and documented the French countryside, Monet's desire to proclaim his and Impressionism's association with the French nation as a whole, came into realization.

During his travels Monet revisited destinations that were main tourist attractions and also were painted by Georges Seurat in his pointillist technique, and reworked these subjects in pure Impressionist style.

Claude Monet, Cliff Walk at Pourville, 1882

(Art Institute of Chicago)

Georges Seurat, La Bec du Hoc, Grancamp, 1885

(Tate Gallery, London)

While in Monet's Cliff Walk at Pourville, even the grass is moving and there is no clear edge, in Seurat's Le Bec du Hoc, the edges are clearly defined and the birds in the air, the only living thing on the canvas look still.

Claude Monet, Rocks at Belle Isle, 1886
(Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow)

When Monet was painting these rocks in a spot that is a little bit father down the coast from where Seurat made his painting in Grancamp,  Monet must have been thinking of him.  The deep blue and violet tones of the water shows the dynamism of the sea and how dangerous the coast is. Monet uses the same tones he uses in the water, in the rock formations along with yellow and orange to emphasize the light effects. Interestingly enough, Seurat also uses yellow and oranges for his light effects but without any of Monet's dynamism.


Monet talked about the difficulties he was having during his stay in Belle Isle, in his letters to Alice Hoschede and his friends.   The canvases he produced in Belle Isle had no trace of humanity, only earth, sky and sea.  He wrote about the crashing waves and the mist and how difficult it was to paint in these conditions, creating the myth of Monet as the artist who was deeply and personally involved with nature.  Although, Monet actually would finish his paintings in his studio.  By concentrating on the weather and light conditions, in specific sites, Monet proved the lengths he could go to in Impressionism and the exacting depiction of natural phenomenon.
His Belle Ille paintings were the first of his series paintings where he used a standard format for all the canvases and concentrated on a limited motif, and exhibited several together as a group.  These were the predecessor of his famous Grain Stacks series.

Georges Seurat - Le Cirque

Georges Seurat, Le Cirque, 1890
(Musee d'Orsay)

This was Georges Seurat's last painting that he exhibited at the Salon des Independants in 1891 in its unfinished state. He died a couple of days after hanging the painting.  This painting contains all the elements Seurat was interested in and experimenting with,  but we don't know how much further or in which direction he might have gone from here since he died so young, leaving behind his own version of optical blending of color called pointillism.

Jules Cheret, Hippodrome de la PorteMaillot,
Paris Courses, 1890

Le Cirque is a very good example of how Seurat incorporated popular imagery and interpreted the condition of modern society into his work.  He could have looked to one of  Jules Cheret's posters advertising the Paris Courses at the Hippodrome de la Porte Maillot, or a Ball at the Moulin Rouge,  for this  particular painting; some of the figures and colors are almost exact replicas.  Seurat was known to have admired how Gustave Courbet used popular culture as a source for fine art.  This was a time when posters were starting to be used for the advertisement of popular entertainments and Cheret's posters would have been all over Paris.  What Seurat accomplished by breaking down barriers was cause for criticizim for bringing in too much popular culture to his work.

Theatrical subject matters like the circus were also a favorite with Degas, who also might have had an influence on Seurat's selection of this particular motif.

This painting with all its upward moving diagonals and warm colors, all of which would have suggested a happy and uplifting experience, in actuality could have been a critique of spectatorship.  The audience seems to be unresponsive to the spectacle that was taking place in front of their eyes.  This was a time when people of all classes were looking to find entertainments in a city like Paris that in itself had become a spectacle as T. J. Clark called it in his book, The Painting of Modern Life. 
Seurat applied Henry Chevreul's theory of the balancing contrasting colors to create harmony by painting a blue frame to the predominantly yellow color of  this picture.

Observing how Seurat has flattened the picture plane even more than his previous works and the different  points of perspective offered within the painting and the juxtaposition of the different concerns throughout the history of art being incorporated in his own unique vision makes me wonder what was next if he had lived a longer life.

Georges Seurat - Le Chahut

Georges Seurat, Le Chahut, 1889-1890

(Kroller-Mueller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands)

Charles Henry, a French biologist and philosopher wrote a book Introduction to a Scientific Aesthetics that theorized psychological and physiological implications of color and line.  According Henry's theory, lines moving in an upward direction were suggestive of happiness, while lines moving downwards suggested sadness and warm color moving from blue-green to red (including green, yellow and orange) were pleasing and uplifting while cool colors moving from red to blue-green (including blue, purple) resulted in feelings of sadness.

Georges Seurat was familiar with Henry's theories and believed that art was harmony which was an analogy of contrary and similar elements of tone, color and line. When considered in this light, Le Chahut, can be regarded as a painting about the psychological effects of color and line.  The canvas is made up of  predominantly warm colors, orangy reds and some yellow(that changed in the years after it was painted.)  All the lines in the painting are moving upwards causing an uplifting mood. Except for the one linear line  in the left side of the canvas everything is at diagonals. The girls' and men's legs, their facial features, men's mustaches even the ribbons on their shoes and shoulders seems to be have taken flight upwards. The Base player in the front of the picture plane  with his back turned, connects the painting with its frame, he forms a huge triangle that grounds the composition.  There is also an orchestra chef and an audience that goes around the stage who are following the show.  The viewer is behind the orchestra, similar to some of Degas' ballet paintings.  The other prominent figure in the painting is the man with a pug-nose who is sitting on the right side of the painting. His features recall a satyr's, making the viewer aware of the an underlying seedy, sexualized behavior taking place. As a matter of fact, it does look like he is looking up the skirts of the dancer in front of him. Satyr's were supposed to have an insatiable appetite for sex.

This is the scene of a tacky entertainment that was in one of the establishments that was being frequented by the newly emerging lower and middle classes.  It is a chorus line of men and women doing the high kick, as opposed to the opera or the ballet.  It also is a good example of the influence of popular culture on Seurat's work recalling Jules Cheret's posters that were all over Paris at the time.  In Le Chahut, Seurat has taken all the elements that interested him from the contemporary culture and redefined it all in his own terms of geometry, color and harmony.  

Georges Seurat - Les Poseuses

Georges Seurat, Les Poseuses,1886-1888
(Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania)

Here Seurat depicts three models (they are probably the same woman in different poses) in the process of getting undressed in order pose for the artist, in his studio.  They stand in front of his painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, with their paraphernalia strewn around them, making us aware of their state of undress and their status as working women.  The three women bring to mind the Three Graces from Greek mythology, viewed from front, side and back but Seurat dispels any notion of a timeless mythological narrative here with not only the contemporaneousness of the clothing that the models have taken off but also through the very commonplace practice of models taking off their costumes to pose for the artist.

Seurat's work encompasses a lot of tension, between idealized art and modern science, as well as popular culture and elite, high art.  Here, the artist's interest in the artistic ideals of the past, is evident thorough how he has incorporated the figures in this painting from known references in traditional art; something his contemporary audience would have immediately recognized.

                 

Ingres, The Bather of Valpincon, 1808

Les Poseuses has been interpreted as a reworking of the representation of the female nude in Western art. We can trace the sources of his inspiration right here.

The model on the left is taken from Ingres' The Bather of Valpincon, recalling the tradition of the female nude in French art.  Seurat has the model seated partially covered with a sheet around her buttocks, facing  away from the viewer completely while the Ingres is almost a 3/4 view of a totally nude figure.

Venus Pudica, Greek 1st C. BC

The woman standing in the middle is a reference to Venus Pudica ( the modest Venus) a term used for the classical female nude in traditional Western art that is covering her genitalia.  One of the most famous works of the ancient Greek sculptor, Praxiteles of Athens, form 4th century B.C. was the Aphrodite of Cnidus which is now lost but the best- known type of this Venus is a copy signed by Menophantos from 1st century BC.  This gesture has been used by artists throughout the history of western art including Sandro Botticelli in The Birth of Venus.  Seurat recalls this pose but has taken off the drapery and the elongated grace out of the traditional figure.

  

Spinario, Boy with Thorn in His Foot, 
Roman marble copy c.25-50

The young woman with the green stockings is taken from Spinario, Boy with Thorn, a statue which was one of the few Roman statues that was not lost; it was a favorite with artists from different generations to reference. Here Seurat has taken the boy and made him a woman and instead of taking a thorn out of his foot, she is putting stockings on her feet.

Eadweard Muybridge

Seurat was also very interested in the technological advancements of his time.  In the late 1870's photographer Eadweard Muybridge was working on capturing figures in motion in a series of photographs. The three different poses recalling Muybridge's works about the human body in motion, could be attributed to Seurat's interest in photography. 

The stiff formality of La Grande Jatte, has been softened  in Les Poseuses making the figures appear more natural but the tension that is often seen in Seurat's work is present between what is the disarrayed scene before and inside the monumental masterpiece.  The whole painting is united by the use of color; the artist's studio that is seen in front of the frame of La Grand Jatte contains the exact same shades of colors that are inside the painting's frame, creating an ambiguous image blurring the difference between the artwork and reality of the studio.

Everything about Les Poseuses, seems to be reinforcing the idea of 'art as artifice.' By using classical idealized elements of traditional art, Seurat has constructed a contemporary, matter-of-fact scene that is taking place in his studio.  We can further delve into his motives by looking at the dictionary definition for the word 'Poseuse' which is a person who habitually pretends to be something he is not.  This is yet another thought provoking painting by Seurat that is open to many interpretations.