I Have An Answer

 Way back in 2016, I was teaching a lesson at my 4 year university when I got a question from a student.  I was showing the well known piece from Seurat, "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte," probably a thing about color.  The question was, what is that red thing there?  Classrooms there were not as dark as I would have liked, and so the slide was a bit compromised.  But eventually I figured out what they were talking about, but I couldn't give an answer.  I had no idea.  Looked like something mostly red, in front of a big rock.  So I posted the image and the question to my teaching blog for that school, and was open to responses.  

Got none of course, so I mostly forgot about it.  But this morning I saw a video online that said it would explain all the mysteries of this famous example of divisionism (as Seurat called it) or pointillism (as everyone calls it now), so I watched it.  And it did address this mystery object.  Perhaps influenced by this student, I thought of it as a red object in front of a big gray rock.  However, it turns out that this is some kind of hat with a long red tail, on the head of someone facing away from the viewer, wearing gray.  And in the video this was backed up by some sketches of the same figure that make it clear that it's a person there.  Not sure why she is there and facing that direction, but she is.  So now 8 years later, I have an answer.   I posted it to this blog, as my job at that school was ended by Covid, and I doubt there have been many people looking at that blog for the past several years.