Social Distancing in the art of Georges Seurat (1859-1891)

by Kevin Kiely

Awake a second time, the digital clock at 04.11   

EuroNews(on mute) slides countries & statistics

across the screen. Gothic trees beyond the window sill

with the sad still life, iPhone and two stray books 

Nineteenth Century French Artists 

andWhen Things Fall Apart(Pema Chödrön)

Seurat’sA Sunday on La Grande Jattemay be breaking

the 2-metres social distancing, his perfectly painted parents

catcalled their kids (obviously) to order like those on a break

from lockdown who waddle nervous as ducklings

in the local park where joggers wearing sunglasses

endlessly circle the artificial lake, and elders

are like mourners staring into the water

the dogs on leads (by order), while the volley ball

mixed-doubles seems to be the only fun in the sun—

Seurat’s cosmopolitans pulsate in sombre sensual haze

beside the glittering river, yachts, boats, Paris on the horizon—

but it was the hats, umbrellas, the dreamy relaxation that made me grab

the red marker and graffiti ←2Metres→ between his two dragoons, the freak

playing the trombone, the guys rowing, the pipe smoker snooping on the

family picnic—

A Star Trek episodePlanet C-19would lack action

about an invisible virus that kills at random (weak storyline)

‘It’s life Jim but not as we know it’ (Got it in one, Mr Spock)

I wilfully ‘destroy’ Seurat’s beautiful painting with plenty ←2M→

(Chödrön) offers Buddhist heart advice on ‘intimacy with fear’

and ‘this very moment is the perfect teacher’ as the kettle boils

making morbid music. The label on theYogi Organic Sleep Tea

bag says ‘Patience Pays’. ‘Healthy lockdowners who are fed and fed up

are never heroes. Frontline workers are the heroes’—the local

free newspaper proclaims.

EuroNewsattempts to evade the horrors, shows people talking

balcony to balcony, shoppers zig-zagging to the safety of their cars

and then lots of hospital footage, South American lion coloured graveyards

with JCB diggers on standby. Drink your tea and don’t touch your face.

It may be years before children in school-playgrounds

chant: ‘Ring-A-Ring A-Covid. Cough Cough, Spit Spit.

We All Fall Down’. And how long before the pharmacies

sellCovidoxandCovidox (Extra Strength):‘don’t take while

driving your electric car.’Or there may be no more schools,

as once there were cave dwellers, animal skins for clothes,

flint utensils and bone needles—

Someone messaged around midnight with laughing emoticons:

‘If you hear the sound of one hand washing in the sink,

you’re not staying safe.’