Sunday in The Park With George/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Genius Bonus: Several, including:
    • The scene with Dot powdering herself is a recreation of Seurat's painting "Jeune femme se poudrant". Dot later refers to it as "her" painting and Georges mentions he has repainted it with another model (which, particularly with the original production, explains why Dot looks nothing like the figure in the painting).
    • If recalled correctly, the Celestes were gossiping that "George has another woman." This leaves room for the audience to infer that George is with Madeline Knoblock, his real life mistress, (and painted her over Dot's painting).
    • There are numerous references to visiting the follies, which would be the subject of Seurat's later painting "Le Chahut".
    • The painting "Une Baignade, Asnieres" makes a brief appearance (just before the song "No Life"). It's not entirely clear from context, but the idea is that the action of the painting is taking place on the bank of the Seine opposite to La Grande Jatte, since many art critics believe that's where it was painted.
    • George's laser machines are named "Chromolumes" after a phrase in one of Seurat's personal letters, in which he described himself as a "chromo-luminarist". Another subtler reference might be that modern day George, like his ancestor, thinks of himself as both a scientist and an artist (he describes himself as "an inventor-sculptor").
  • True Art
    • True Art Is Angsty: Georges loses the love of his life, Dot, to his work; George, it appears, has suffered a failed marriage and is suffering a creative crisis.
    • True Art Is Foreign: Averted - George of Act II is an American artist. However, his art is on a very different level from the French Georges' art.
    • True Art Is Incomprehensible: George's Chromolumes make no sense to anybody except, maybe, to him.
      • Though of course, the same is shown to be true of Georges' paintings.