George Smith's picture of the crowds out for a stroll on what I imagine is Brighton Pier - else why the title? - looks like a crowded version of Seurat's famous pointilist painting, "Sunday in the Park", without the confusing dots when you get too close. The people wear the same sort of clothes, carry the same sort of umbrella and except that the crush of bodies is not what one would expect of fashionable Parisians, is much the same thing. I doubt if so many of Seurat's subjects paid as much attention to the artist dab-dab-dabbing at his canvas, but in 1898, motion picture cameras were a lot rarer on the Brighton Pier than Sunday painters on Grande Jatte when Seurat was working.
Smith was doing some of his experiments that would lead to modern film grammar, but whether this was an experiment of some sort, or just an actuality meant to show off the usual crowd is not clear.
Smith was doing some of his experiments that would lead to modern film grammar, but whether this was an experiment of some sort, or just an actuality meant to show off the usual crowd is not clear.
