Seurat _ Courtauld's Impressionists _ National Gallery

The exhibition features one of the most important paintings in the National Gallery's collection, Seurat's Beises, La Baignade à Angers, and we're hanging it next to three paintings from Courtauld's private collection, including the young woman powdering herself. Both paintings really show very mundane subjects. The Beises at Angers shows young factory workers who are taking a break by the river Seine, but treated on this huge scale, and this is what makes the painting so striking. Likewise, in a young woman powdering herself, we're looking at a painting with a very ordinary subject matter. This is a model preparing herself in the intimacy of her boudoir, applying powder to her face. She's sitting in front of a mirror. Like in the Beises, Seurat is giving these figures this great monumentality. He's transfigured them to these great gods and goddesses of the modern time. Georges Seurat is pioneering a new technique, pointillism. The idea is that the colour is not mixed on the palette or on the canvas, but it is applied in small separate dots of colour which are fused optically by the eye from a distance. When Seurat paints the Beises, he has not quite fully evolved this new technique, but we've got a great example of it in a young woman powdering herself. He's varying the size and the density of the dots to create this sense of volume and relief. He makes her body stand out on this wonderful background with these shapes which animate what looks like the wallpaper. Seurat's Beises was bought from the Courtauld Fund in March 1924 by Samuel Courtauld himself. Normally, every potential purchase was discussed between Courtauld and his fellow trustees, but in the case of this acquisition, the dealer asked Courtauld to give an immediate answer. He went ahead with the acquisition and thankfully, the Director of the Tate and the Director of the National Gallery were delighted, so he was proven right, but it was a personal choice on Courtauld's part.