Preparatory Sketch for the Painting La Grève du Bas-Butin, Honfleur

Painted in 1886 and now at the Baltimore Museum of Art, this preparatory sketch for 'La Grève du Bas-Butin, Honfleur' records Seurat's initial compositional thinking for the large coastal canvas he completed in 1886. Honfleur, the historic Normandy port, was Seurat's summer painting location in 1886, and he produced several major canvases there. The Bas-Butin is a low-lying coastal area east of the town centre, and the panoramic sweep of beach, sea, and distant headland provided the horizontal geometry Seurat's compositions favoured. These sketches reveal the planning stage of his systematic working process.

The sketch applies Seurat's pointillist method in a more exploratory, less uniform manner than his finished canvases—dots of colour establish the composition's colour temperature relationships and spatial zones without the precision of the final work. The palette is already coastal: sandy yellows, sea blues, and sky gradients.