Woman in a Park 

Georges Seurat created this oil on canvas painting, Woman in a Park, sometime in the late 1800s. The woman is surrounded by trees and foliage, but she is not quite present; she's almost camouflaged. This period in France saw the rise of the flâneur, the stroller, the person with the leisure time to wander city parks. But this figure was almost always male. What, then, of the woman in the park? Has Seurat created an image of modern leisure, or has he made the woman a symbol of something else, like nature itself? These are the kinds of questions we can ask when we consider not just the image, but also the social and cultural context in which it was made. The historian might look at the rise of the bourgeoisie or the role of women in late 19th century France. The point is that art doesn't exist in a vacuum, and historical context can help us to understand it better.