The Seine seen from La Grande Jatte

Painted in 1888 and now at the National Gallery in London, this small panel depicts the Seine viewed from the island of La Grande Jatte itself—the island that Seurat had immortalised two years earlier in his masterpiece. Returning to the site in 1888, after completing the Grande Jatte canvas and achieving a transformative impact on the Paris avant-garde, Seurat painted this quieter, smaller view of the river from the island. The work is both a revisitation and a demonstration that the divisionist method could be applied to any modest subject as readily as to the grandest compositional ambitions.

The panel applies Seurat's fully mature divisionist system to a simple riverbank view. The Seine's surface is built up through precisely placed dots of blue, green, and reflected colours. The trees and bank are rendered through the characteristic warm-cool complementary contrast that gives all his mature landscape work its vibrant luminosity.