Rejuvenating the color palette of Georges Seurat'sA Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884: A simulation

Georges Seurat first employed his divisionist painting technique, commonly called pointillism, on A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 beginning in October 1885. Painting with pigments representing colors seen in the visible spectrum that were minimally mixed on the palette and using divided brushstrokes, he aimed to impart “luminosity” to the surface and to explore color theories that were being developed and disseminated at that time, such as simultaneous contrast, in his unique interpretation. In addition to the natural ageing of the painting materials causing an overall darkening of the painting, pigment analysis has disclosed that the brushwork containing zinc yellow has darkened significantly: yellow, green–yellow, and orange brushstrokes have become ochre-like, olive–green, and reddish–brown, respectively. By performing spectral reflectance measurements in situ on darkened areas of the painting and on paint-outs of comparable unaltered colors, using Kubelka–Munk turbid media theory, imaging the painting with color-managed digital photography, and image editing with Adobe Photoshop, a digital version of the original, more luminous appearance of La Grande Jatte was simulated. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 31, 278–293, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20223