Port-en-Bessin, outer harbour, high tide

Port-en-Bessin, Outer Harbour, High Tide (1888) is one of the six paintings Seurat made at the Normandy fishing harbour during the summer of 1888, immediately after completing Le Chahut's preparatory work. The view at high tide, with boats floating level with the harbour walls and the distant cliffs framing an open sea, gave Seurat one of his most formally resolved marine compositions. The series confirmed divisionism's capacity to render the luminous, subtle effects of Norman coastal weather. Now at the Musée d'Orsay.

Horizontal bands of cliff, wall, water, and sky are unified by an even dot-work surface. The warm ochre of stone is separated from cool blue-green water by Seurat's careful application of simultaneous contrast. The high tide fills the composition with reflective water, giving maximum surface to divisionist optical mixing.