Circus Sideshow

In the mid-1880 the depiction of suburban pleasures favoured by the Impressionists gave way to pictures of urban entertainment, as writers, poets, and songwriters turned to acrobats, clowns, and caf� singers for subject matter. Seurat’s interest in urban entertainment culminated in Circus Sideshow. The scene is a sideshow given in the evening on the street to lure passersby into purchasing tickets to the circus. But instead of being gay and festive, the performance is calm and brooding. Using a fine brush, Seurat has covered the canvas with a myriad of dark violet-blue, orange, and green dots of paint. Although his research in optics was purportedly scientific, the forms are endowed with mystery. Figures seem to levitate in the moody gaslight, musicians and performers are eerily geometric and alienated from the audience, and railings suggest ramps that lead nowhere. In this world where nothing is certain to the eye, Seurat implies a parity between fact and fantasy.

Circus Sideshow represents the first important painting Seurat devoted to a scene of popular entertainment. In effect, it sets the stage for his last great figure compositions, La Chahut of 1889–90 (Kr�ller-M�ller Museum, Otterlo) and Circus of 1890–91 (Mus�e d’Orsay, Paris).