Standing Model by Georges Seurat
Here the technique takes on special relief. In some spots the outline drawing can be perceived - this is one of the few figures for which the artist made a line drawing. Treatment of volume, too, is elaborate, involving a fairly pronounced chiaroscuro.
What we have here is really the quintessential model. More completely than any other painter, Seurat has rendered the submissiveness, the absence of all affectation, and the unawareness of their own charms that often characterize professional models. By the same token, the artist makes it clear that his only concern in relation to the nude standing in front of him is to metamorphose her in some mysterious way into a new form, a girl entirely of his creation, one of the columns in the temple which the finished painting represents to him.
According to Jules Christophe, this "slim, slightly knock-kneed model" is "purer and sweeter than the idealized Source by Papa Ingres." There she stands, "hands folded over the pudendum." Next year, Christophe goes on to say, we will have "two pretty, younger girls, one viewed from the back, the other in profile, and near them the gold of a few oranges, a green stocking, a straw hat with white feathers, a purple parasol, other hats and skirts, now blue now violet, a red sofa, and at the far end of the studio, shown slantwise-one section of the militant painting: La Grande Jatte.
