Woman Strolling 1884

Georges Seurat made "Woman Strolling" using conté crayon sometime in the late 1800s. Here we see the image of a bourgeois woman with an umbrella, strolling, hence the title. But what is she strolling past? Is it a barren landscape or the barest indication of a wall? Consider the rise of impressionism, around this time in France, and its focus on everyday life. What can a historian say about this work in the light of the institutional structures that framed it? Was Seurat critiquing the art institutions of his day by presenting such a bleak image? Or was he subverting the impressionist focus on everyday leisure, by presenting such a grim vision? By researching the Parisian social conditions, the politics, and the institutions of art that Seurat lived and worked in, we can try to understand the role this drawing played in its time.