Poseuse debout

Poseuse debout (Standing Model, 1887) is one of the individual panel studies made in preparation for the large canvas Les Poseuses, Seurat's response to critics who questioned whether divisionism could handle the human figure as effectively as landscape. By isolating a single standing nude against a plain interior ground, Seurat could test how pointillist dot-work would render flesh, volume, and the complex light conditions of a studio. These studies remain among the most intimate and technically revealing works of his career. Musée d'Orsay.

The figure's warm skin tones are built from minute points of orange, cream, and pink, while the shadowed side shows blue-green complementaries. The panel format concentrates the density of dotwork into a small, precise surface. Background strokes are distinctly cooler in hue.