Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte"

Georges Seurat, 1884

Look first

What catches your attention?
Where does your eye go next?
What would you ask about this work?

Show me

Compare the small, crossing brushstrokes here with the more regular dots in the finished La Grande Jatte.

Skip to the reading

This canvas is Seurat’s final preparatory study for the large park scene now in Chicago. At just over a meter wide, it is much larger than his little wooden studies. Separate touches of contrasting color already animate the surface, but the marks have not yet become the tighter dots of the finished painting.

Oil on canvas · 27 3/4 x 41 in. (70.5 x 104.1 cm · The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Neo-Impressionism · Post-Impressionism

Read more at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sources

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Study for “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” 51.112.6

Look again

What do you notice now?

Try a quick sketch

Take a minute to sketch on any paper. No upload needed.

What did you draw first? What did you leave out?

Details and source

Museum title: Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte"
Artist: Georges Seurat (French, Paris 1859–1891 Paris)
Date: 1884
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 27 3/4 x 41 in. (70.5 x 104.1 cm)
Credit line: Bequest of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951
Image license: CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Artist’s life 1859–1891

Post-Impressionism c. 1886–1905

View in the Atlas

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