Man in a Boat

Painted in 1884 and now at the Courtauld Gallery in London, this small panel of a man in a boat on the Seine near Asnières or La Grande Jatte represents a transitional figure study where the boat and its occupant—rendered as near-silhouette against the river surface—anticipate the characteristic figure treatment of both the Bathers and the Grande Jatte canvases. The man in a boat is a quintessential Impressionist subject—painted by Monet, Caillebotte, and Renoir—but Seurat's treatment, with its formal stillness and systematic colour, transforms the informal motif into something closer to hieroglyph than snapshot.

The figure and boat are painted as dark, simplified forms against the light-reflecting water, with careful work on the boat's reflection and the surrounding Seine surface. The characteristic Seurat spatial flattening—where all forms tend toward silhouette in bright light—is clearly present even in this small study.