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.’
