Sunday at Port-en-Bessin

Sunday at Port-en-Bessin (1888) depicts the harbour at Port-en-Bessin decorated with flags for a public holiday, one of six paintings Seurat made there during the summer of 1888. The national tricolours introduce vertical colour accents and festive associations into his otherwise contemplative marine compositions. The integration of flags and their reflections in the harbour water gave Seurat a compositional challenge in combining symbolic motifs with systematic divisionist technique. Kröller-Müller Museum.

The vertical flag poles and horizontal harbour walls create a firm geometric grid against which the divisionist surface works. Flags introduce strong red and blue primaries into the otherwise muted maritime palette. Water reflections dissolve architectural forms into shimmering colour fields below the harbour wall.