A Sunday on La Grande Jatte is considered Georges Seurat’s finest work.
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A Sunday on La Grande Jatte is considered Georges Seurat’s finest work. It depicts a peaceful scene of Parisians leisurely enjoying a sunny day along the banks of the Seine River. What makes this famous Met painting unique is the technique used.
Look closely and you’ll notice the entire painting is comprised of tiny dots, which give the illusion of blending together when viewed from a distance. This technique was invented by Seurat and came to be known as Pointillism (from the French word for dot or point).
Seurat preferred the term Divisionism because he saw the method as separating colors into small touches that blend together when expertly painted side-by-side. As you can imagine, the painting took a lot of work!
The effort paid off because A Sunday on La Grande Jatte is considered the most remarkable painting of the 19th century. Seurat completed several “trial runs” before finalizing the official painting, which is displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Met houses a smaller (but still complete!) Study for “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.” Needless to say, it’s a must-see at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.