A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

painting

Look closer

Select a detail to locate it.

Seurat’s Parisians spend an afternoon beside the Seine on La Grande Jatte. He began the canvas in 1884 and revised it across several campaigns before its public debut in 1886. The apparent leisure rests on sustained work.

Details

At close range the surface separates into dots of colour. Seurat drew on optical theory, placing colours side by side for the eye to combine. He later added a dotted border to mediate between the painting and its white frame.

In its time

1884

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Paintings from this period

Where it hangs

Art Institute of Chicago

In context

A Sunday on the island

It is Seurat's best known painting: Parisians at leisure in a park on the Seine, at the island called La Grande Jatte.

Returning to the canvas

Seurat began the canvas in 1884, then kept coming back to it, working in campaigns across nearly two years. He revised his figures as he went and refined his palette.

Colour, dot by dot

Rather than mix paint on the palette, Seurat set down tiny dots of pure colour side by side, a technique known as Pointillism or Divisionism. He grounded it in optical and colour theory: dots the eye would mix into a single, brighter hue.

A border of dots

In 1889, Seurat restretched the canvas and ringed the scene with a painted border of dots. It formed a transition into his own specially designed white frame.

The story

1884. Seurat begins the canvas.
1885 to 1886. He keeps returning to it, working in campaigns, revising figures and refining his palette.
1886. The canvas makes its public debut.
1889. Seurat adds a painted border of dots at the edge.

A way of seeing

Neo-Impressionism

Instead of mixing paint on the palette, Seurat set down pure colour in tiny dots and let the eye blend them into a single, brighter hue: a technique called Pointillism or Divisionism, grounded in the new science of optics.