Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884–1886

Georges Seurat's most well-known painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, was created between 1884 and 1886. It is a key piece of the neo-impressionist movement and a prime example of pointillist technique on a huge canvas. Many Parisians are depicted in Seurat's composition relaxing at a park along the Seine. It is a part of the Art Institute of Chicago's collection.

The iconic image by Georges Seurat, which evokes the Paris of the Belle Epoque, really shows a working-class suburban scene outside the city's core. Contrary to the bourgeois depictions of his Impressionist contemporaries, Seurat frequently made this milieu the subject of his paintings. Seurat chose the idea of eternal permanence found in Greek sculpture above the capture-the-moment style of Manet, Monet, and Degas. And that is just what you get in this procession of individuals that resembles a frieze; their immobility is consistent with Seurat's intention to create a classical landscape in modern form.

The painting debuted in May 1886 at the eighth (and final) Impressionist exhibition before taking center stage in August 1886 at the second Salon of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, which Seurat had founded in 1884. Seurat, who largely charted his own steady route, was incredibly disciplined, perpetually somber, and reclusive to the point of secrecy. With La Grande Jatte, he allegedly succeeded in changing the course of art history, which was one of his goals as a painter.

Artist: Georges Seurat

Created: 1884–1886