“Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science"  Seurat

"Go to the country--the muse is in the woods"  Corot

Le Jardin de Maubuisson, Pontoise

Le Jardin de Maubuisson, Pontoise

Camille Pissarro 1882

  • Date: 1884
  • Title: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
  • Holder: Art Institute of Chicago
  • Artist: Georges Seurat
  • Movement: Post-Impressionism

seurat jatte 1884

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte painted from 1884 to 1886, is Georges Seurat's most famous work. It is a leading example of pointillist technique, executed on a large canvas.

Seurat painted A Sunday Afternoon between May 1884 and March 1885, and from October 1885 to May 1886, focusing meticulously on the landscape of the park. He reworked the original and completed numerous preliminary drawings and oil sketches. He sat in the park, creating numerous sketches of the various figures in order to perfect their form. He concentrated on issues of colour, light, and form.

The painting was first exhibited at the eighth (and last) Impressionist exhibition in May 1886, then in August 1886, dominating the second Salon of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, of which Seurat had been a founder in 1884. With La Grande Jatte, Seurat was immediately acknowledged as the leader of a new and rebellious form of Impressionism called Neo-Impressionism.

 Some additional paintings may be seen on this site in the Seurat Gallery.