Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)

Georges Seurat, 1887–88

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Follow the row of gaslights above the musicians, then find the audience silhouetted along the lower edge.

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The musicians perform outside Circus Corvi at a Paris fair, where a free sideshow encouraged visitors to buy tickets. This was Seurat’s first nocturnal painting. Shown in 1888, it tested his method of separate color touches under artificial light rather than the daylight of his river scenes.

Oil on canvas · 39 1/4 x 59 in. (99.7 x 149.9 cm · The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Neo-Impressionism · Post-Impressionism

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Sources

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)

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Details and source

Museum title: Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)
Artist: Georges Seurat (French, Paris 1859–1891 Paris)
Date: 1887–88
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 39 1/4 x 59 in. (99.7 x 149.9 cm)
Credit line: Bequest of Stephen C. Clark, 1960
Image license: CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Artist’s life 1859–1891

Post-Impressionism c. 1886–1905

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.