Past Exhibition

The Pastoral Landscape

This horizontal landscape is painted with dots and dashes in fresh green, shimmering blue, amethyst purple, shell pink, pale yellow, and cream white against the brown wood of the panel, which is visible throughout. Though loosely painted, a scene with a grassy area hemmed to our left and along the back with a body of water comes into focus. A person sits near the bank to our left. Daubs in violet could be more people walking in the near distance among trees. An arc of white suggests a sailboat near the shoreline off to our left. The artist signed the painting in red in the lower left, “Seurat.”
Georges Seurat, Study for "La Grande Jatte", 1884/1885, oil on wood, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.81

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building, Ground Floor, Central Gallery (3,500 sq. ft.)
This horizontal landscape is painted with dots and dashes in fresh green, shimmering blue, amethyst purple, shell pink, pale yellow, and cream white against the brown wood of the panel, which is visible throughout. Though loosely painted, a scene with a grassy area hemmed to our left and along the back with a body of water comes into focus. A person sits near the bank to our left. Daubs in violet could be more people walking in the near distance among trees. An arc of white suggests a sailboat near the shoreline off to our left. The artist signed the painting in red in the lower left, “Seurat.”
Georges Seurat, Study for "La Grande Jatte", 1884/1885, oil on wood, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.81

Overview: 80 paintings, drawings, and prints were selected to show the work of Venetian Renaissance artists and their influence on other European artists of the 17th and 18th centuries. Works by Giorgione, Titian, Rembrandt, Claude Lorrain, Antoine Watteau, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and others were included.

Organization: The works were selected by Robert Cafritz and Sir Lawrence Gowing at the Phillips Collection with David Rosand of Columbia University. Beverly Louise Brown was coordinator at the National Gallery. Brown and Sydney Freedberg designed the exhibition. In association with this exhibition, The Modern Vision was held at the Phillips Collection to show the work of artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Sponsor: The exhibition was supported by grants from Ford Motor Company and the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, with additional assistance from the L.J. and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation, and an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Attendance: 170,526

Catalog: Places of Delight: The Pastoral Landscape, by Robert C. Cafritz, Lawrence Gowing, and David Rosand. Washington, DC: Phillips Collection, 1988.

Brochure: The Pastoral Landscape: The Legacy of Venice, the Modern Vision. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1988.

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