Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte"

1884
Not on view
This small panel is one of approximately fifty oil sketches and drawings made as preparatory studies for Seurat’s monumental masterpiece, A Sunday on La Grand Jatte. Painted from 1884–86, the scene depicts Parisians at leisure on an island in the Seine. Illustrating Seurat’s process of investigation, the figures in the present panel were significantly transformed in the final painting. Seurat’s style came to be known as Pointillism (from the French word “point,” or “dot”), but he preferred the term divisionism—the principle of separating color into small touches placed side-by-side and meant to blend in the eye of the viewer.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte"
  • Artist: Georges Seurat (French, Paris 1859–1891 Paris)
  • Date: 1884
  • Medium: Oil on wood
  • Dimensions: 6 1/8 × 9 1/2 in. (15.6 × 24.1 cm)
    Framed: 13 1/8 × 17 in. (33.3 × 43.2 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
  • Object Number: 1975.1.207
  • Curatorial Department: The Robert Lehman Collection

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