Port-en-Bessin: The Outer Harbor (Low Tide)

Painted in 1888 and now at the Saint Louis Art Museum, this view of the outer harbour at Port-en-Bessin at low tide belongs to the six-canvas series Seurat completed at this small Normandy fishing village during the summer of 1888. Port-en-Bessin, then unspoiled by tourism, offered the combination of natural coastline, working harbour activity, and strong horizontal spatial structure that Seurat's coastal compositions consistently sought. The low-tide view reveals the harbour's stone quays and the beached or moored boats in the emptied basin—a geometrically simpler subject than the bustling high-tide scenes.

The reduced water level at low tide produces a more complex foreground of exposed harbour floor, stone walls, and moored boats. Seurat renders these varied surfaces through his systematic dot application, with warm ochres for stone and sand contrasting the cool blues and greens of residual water.