Home / Artworks / A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
Georges Seurat, 1884–86, border added 1888–89
Georges Seurat painted A Sunday on La Grande Jatte over two years, from 1884 to 1886. It shows people of all ages and social classes on the bank of the River Seine near Paris. At about 2 by 3 metres, nearly ten feet wide, it is big enough that viewers have to step back to see it as a whole.
Up close, the figures and the grass dissolve into dots and dashes of complementary colours set side by side. This is the pointillist technique, which Seurat developed so that colours would mix in the viewer's eye. Many smaller paintings and drawings came before the final canvas. The Art Institute notes that Seurat returned to it two years after he began, strengthening some outlines and adding figures, including the monkey on a leash, which now seems essential to the picture.
The Art Institute of Chicago says Seurat wanted to make a painting of modern life as ordered as a classical Greek frieze. The figures are stiff and shown mostly in profile or from behind, as in a frieze, and the picture has a calm that is a little strange. The museum has held it since 1924.
From the museum record
| Artist | Georges Seurat |
|---|---|
| Date | 1884–86, border added 1888–89 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Size | 207.5 × 308.1 cm (81 3/4 × 121 1/4 in.) |
| Museum | The Art Institute of Chicago |
| Credit line | Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection |
| Accession number | 1926.224 |
| Licence | Public domain (CC0) |
Source: The Art Institute of Chicago collection record. Facts such as dates, sizes and credit lines come from that record. The write-up above was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the museum record and standard references. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
