Study for 'La Grande Jatte'

Painted in 1884 and now at the National Gallery in London, this figure study for 'Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte' dates from Seurat's first year of work on his magnum opus. Between 1884 and 1886, Seurat made over fifty preparatory studies for La Grande Jatte—figure studies, landscape panels, and compositional sketches—reflecting a methodical process modelled on the Old Masters' preparation for large allegorical canvases. This study records his investigation of the figure groupings that would populate the finished canvas, establishing scale relationships and the characteristic static poses that give the final work its peculiar, freeze-frame grandeur.

The study is more loosely handled than the finished canvas, with figures established in their basic colour masses and spatial positions. Seurat tests the integration of dark-clothed figures against the sunlit landscape, working out the tonal relationships that would structure the final composition.