Study for Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp

Painted in 1885 and now at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, this study for 'Le Bec du Hoc' records an earlier stage in Seurat's development of the dramatic rock composition he would finalise in the National Gallery London canvas of the same year. The existence of multiple studies for this composition reveals Seurat's methodical approach to even a seemingly straightforward landscape subject: different panels test the compositional framing, the colour temperature relationships, and the degree of colour separation appropriate to the subject. The Canberra study is an important document of the creative process behind his first great coastal painting.

The study employs a less fully developed divisionist technique than the final canvas, with broader and less uniformly applied strokes. The essential compositional structure—the dramatic rock mass rising from the sea—is already established, with the colour temperature contrasts that define the final work already present.