In "Finishing the Hat," we have a clear statement of what Art means to an artist.  Mandy Patinkin, as Georges Seurat, is dedicated to his art to the point of excluding himself from the rest of society.  He has the priviledge of planning his own universe, "mapping out a sky," but he must isolate himself in order to do that.  The women he loves must share him with his art, but he is attracted to women of strength and independence, the kind that can't share him.  In return, however, is the Godlike gift of creation.  "Look, I made a hat where there never was a hat."

Finishing the Hat

Yes, she looks for me . . . . Good.
Let her look for me to tell me why she left me
as I always knew she would.
I had thought she understood.
They have never understood, and no reason that they should.
But if anybody could . . . .

Finishing the hat--how you have to finish the hat.
How you watch the rest of the world from a window
while you finish the hat.
Mapping out a sky . . . what you feel like, planning a sky . . .
What you feel when voice that come through the window
go, until they distance and die
Until there's nothing but sky.

And how you're always turning back too late
from the grass, or the stick, or the dog, or the light
How the kind of woman willing to wait's not
the kind that you want to find waiting
to return you to the night, dizzy from the height
Coming from the hat
Studying the hat
Entering the world of the hat
Reaching through the world of the hat like a window
Back to this one, from that.
Studying a face . . . stepping back to look at a face
Leaves a little space in the way, like a window
But to see . . . it's the only way to see

And when the woman that you wanted goes,
you can say to yourself, "Well, I give what I give!"
But the woman who won't wait for you knows
that however you live, there's a part of you
always standing by, mapping out the sky

Finishing the hat.
Starting on a hat.
Look, I made a hat--
Where there never was a hat!

Georges Seurat painted in a very scientific style called Pointillism.  This technique anticipated color television, as the painter used tiny brush strokes of a few basic colors, leaving the mind of the viewer to put the dots together as shades of color.  In "Sunday," we have colors described by their parts ("blue purple yellow red water") as well as by their basic geometric shapes ("triangular water," "elliptical grass"), anticipating abstract art movements yet to come.

Sunday

Chorus: Sunday, by the blue purple yellow red water
on the green purple yellow red grass
Let us pass through a perfect park
pausing on a Sunday

By the cool blue triangular water
on the soft green elliptical grass
as we pass through arrangements of shadows
toward the verticals of trees
Forever . . .

By the blue purple yellow red water
on the green orange violet mass of the grass
In a perfect park
made of flecks of light
and dark
and parasols

People strolling through the trees
of a small suburban park
on an island in the river
on an ordinary Sunday
Sunday . . .
Sunday . . .

"Beautiful" is a very lovely fictional moment between Seurat and his mother.  She, growing old, wants the artist to capture the beauty of life before it disappears, while Seurat, looking to the future, differentiates between "pretty" and "beauty," explaining that true beauty is in the artist's composition.  He points to the newly constructed eiffel tower and says, "See?  A perfect tree."

Beautiful

Changing . . . it keeps changing . . .
I see towers where there were trees.
Going, all the stillness,
the solitude, Georgie!
Sundays disappearing, all the time . . .
When things were beautiful.

All things are beautiful, Mother.
All trees, all towers, beautiful--
That tower beautiful, Mother.
See? A perfect tree.
Pretty isn't beautiful, Mother.
Pretty is what changes . . .
what the eye arranges
is what is beautiful!

Fading . . .

Changing, you're changing,

It keeps fading . . .

I'll draw us now before we fade, Mother

It keeps melting before our eyes!

You watch while I revise the world!

Changing, as we sit here!
Quick! Draw it all, Georgie!
Sundays disappearing as we look . . .

Whispered: Look! Look . . .

You make it beautiful.