Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). View source
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
Georges Seurat · Post-Impressionism & Neo-Impressionism
- Artist
- Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859–1891)
- Date
- 1884–1886
- Dimensions
- 207.5 x 308.1 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, United States
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte shows Parisians of all classes relaxing on an island in the Seine on a sunny Sunday afternoon: strolling couples, a woman fishing, soldiers, children, dogs and a monkey on a leash.
A closer look
Seurat spent two years on the canvas, making dozens of drawings and oil sketches on the spot. He built the picture out of countless tiny dots and dashes of pure colour, placed side by side so that they blend in the viewer’s eye. This method, called pointillism, was based on the colour science of his day. The figures are stiff and silent, seen in strict profile or frontally, like figures on an ancient frieze. The result is a strangely still, timeless image of modern leisure.
History of the painting
Seurat first showed the painting at the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition in 1886, where its new technique divided even the Impressionists. After his early death in 1891 it stayed with his family and later passed through private collections. In 1924 the Chicago collector Frederic Clay Bartlett bought it for the Art Institute, and in 1926 it was presented in memory of his wife Helen. In 1958, while on loan to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, it was carried out unharmed during a fire in the building; since then the Art Institute has not lent it.
