October 21, 2008 by Bruce Hembd

Archived under: General

Sunday in the Park – Hunting Horn or Bugle?


Sunday in the Park Hunting Horn or Bugle?

[ Click image for larger view. ]

Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-6) depicts a busy park filled with visitors. A masterpiece of Pointillist technique, Seurat spent over two years working on it, painstakingly rendering the scene in tiny dots of color.

Seurat horn Sunday in the Park Hunting Horn or Bugle?In the background a man is playing a musical instrument. All online sources call it a bugle, but in a large reproduction I once owned it clearly looked like a hunting horn to my eyes. I also seem to remember when looking at it “in the flesh” at the Chicago Art Institute that it was a horn… but maybe this is my own wishful thinking.

Sunday in the Park Hunting Horn or Bugle?The detail at left is not too clear, but it is the best I could find online. At right is my interpretation.

I believe the mistake that people might be making is in interpreting one of the heads of a couple in the far background as a bugle bell. The “true” bell is actually located between the player’s two hands, suggesting that he is holding a hunting horn parallel to the ground.

A trivial thing I know, but I am curious…can anyone else confirm or deny this as a hunting horn?

BRUCE HEMBD is a web marketing developer by day who plays French horn professionally at night.» More information about Bruce Hembd » More articles by Bruce Hembd » Contact

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Sunday in the Park – Hunting Horn or Bugle?
Published on October 21, 2008 by Bruce Hembd

Archived under: General
John Ericson & Bruce Hembd
on the French horn, brass related topics, and the field of classical music.