Landscape with Puvis de Chavannes' Poor Fisherman

This 1881 panel study is a direct response to Puvis de Chavannes's celebrated canvas The Poor Fisherman (1881), which was shown at the Salon that year and made a profound impression on the young Seurat. By painting a landscape directly referencing Puvis's subject, Seurat engaged with the older artist's simplified, fresco-like style while pushing it towards his own more systematic tonal method. The influence of Puvis's classical restraint and monumental simplicity persisted throughout Seurat's career. Now at the Musée d'Orsay.

The small panel is handled in broad, simplified strokes that echo Puvis's muted colour harmony and compositional calm. The tonal range is restricted and the forms are reduced to their essential masses, anticipating the classical order Seurat would achieve in his mature divisionist canvases.