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Georges Seurat, 'Landscape, Seated Man, Study for La Grande Jatte', 1884-5

About the work

While working on his meticulous paintings in the studio, Seurat also made small studies outdoors on wooden panels, which he called croquetons. He used these panels to record first-hand the atmospheric effects of nature, its play of light and colour, before transforming them into large-scale canvases using his rigorous pointillist method.

This study was made while the artist worked on A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-6, Art Institute of Chicago). Seurat paints the Seine River as a band running across the top of the panel, using distinctive dabs of blue and pink to suggest a gleaming surface, and explores the placement of an isolated figure on the greenery of the riverbank – a space that becomes populated with groups of leisurely middle- and upper-class Parisians in the final work. The sporadic dark shapes underneath the paint surface might indicate other figures Seurat initially tested out, before covering them up with his typical abbreviated marks of contrasting colours.

In 1900, this study and La Grande Jatte were exhibited together at the first prominent retrospective of Seurat’s work after his death in 1891.

Key facts

Full title
Landscape, Seated Man, Study for La Grande Jatte
Artist
Georges Seurat
Artist dates
1859 - 1891
Date made
1884-5
Medium and support
Oil on wood
Dimensions
15.8 × 24.5 cm
Acquisition credit
On loan from a private collection
Inventory number
L1349
Location
Room 44
Image copyright
On loan from a private collection, © Private Collection
Collection
Main Collection

About this record

If you know more about this work or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

More works by Georges Seurat

(Showing 6 of 11 works)
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This small panel may be linked to Seurat’s earliest sketches and ideas for Bathers at Asnières (1883–4), although it is not normally included in the 13 sketches which have been tied to that painting.The carefully organised geometry of the scene, which divides the picture into distinct sections, c...
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Of the small panels in the National Gallery’s collection related to Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières, this oil sketch on wood is perhaps the one most closely connected with the final painting. Unlike other sketches, which concentrate on atmospheric effects or the landscape, Seurat’s focus here is alm...
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Study for 'La Grande Jatte'
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This is one of the earliest studies for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte of 1884–6 (Art Institute of Chicago), and was very likely painted on location. As this sketch was painted in the morning, the sunlight and shadows are the reverse of other studies and of the final painting itself, which shows the...
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Study for 'La Grande Jatte'
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Seurat produced many oil sketches and drawings as studies for his monumental painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte of 1884–6 (Art Institute of Chicago). Many of these concentrate on the landscape but others, including this one, focus on the scale and position of figures within the final picture.He...
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The Channel of Gravelines, Grand Fort-Philippe
The Channel of Gravelines, Grand Fort-Philippe
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This is one of four paintings Seurat produced in 1890 near the town of Gravelines, a small port on the northern French coast between Calais and Dunkirk. Positioned on the sand dunes of Petit-Fort-Philippe, we see the shore in the morning light after the receding tide has left a broad expanse of o...
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This panel was most likely painted in 1885 and relates to a medium-size canvas, The Seine at Courbevoie (now in a private collection in Paris). Seurat may have painted it before he decided to produce a finished picture of this particular view of the river, or it may be a preparatory study.The ver...
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The Rainbow: Study for 'Bathers at Asnières'
The Rainbow: Study for 'Bathers at Asnières'
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This is the only sketch for Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières that includes a rainbow, which was painted over the sky once the paint had dried. Although perhaps a rather contrived image, the mottled sky suggests Seurat may have seen a rainbow. It is evidence of his attention to particular effects of l...
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The Seine seen from La Grande Jatte
The Seine seen from La Grande Jatte
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The island of La Grande Jatte and the views from it across the river Seine were a rich source of pictorial subjects for Seurat during the 1880s. He was especially attracted to this location, in part because of the pictorial forms and structures it offered, such as the horizontal of the river and...
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You've viewed 6 of 11 works