Seurat’s Points in Time

The French artist Georges Seurat, who died tragically young at 31 in 1891, is renowned for his development of pointillism - the application of dots of pure colour to create his paintings. His works are always so recognisable and are famous today across the world.

The latest exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery in London - Seurat and the Sea - is a wonderful collection of the artist’s many pieces painted while on trips to the Channel coast between 1885 and 1890. Seurat went there in his words to ‘cleanse one’s eyes of the days spent in the studio and translate as accurately as possible the bright light, in all its nuances’.

Top - A view of Le Bec du Hoc Below - The Hospice and the Lighthouse of Honfleur

I have seen Seurat’s paintings many times including the large Bathers at Asnières at London’s National Gallery and his major work, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, at the Art Institute of Chicago. They never fail to impress and their distinctive style proves what a great artist Suerat was, easily justifying his rank alongside Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro and all the rest.

Picture - Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

For even greater proof go to his many drawings, often using Conté crayons, which are remarkable using light and shade to dazzling effect creating almost ghostly scenes, many of people.

An example of Seurat's ghostly drawings

Watching the sea scenes at the Courtauld a few days ago, I was struck by the two elements of Seurat’s works. One, obviously, the pointillism itself, the incredible ways his colour dots were painstakingly applied building bit by bit to create a whole. Some criticized the artist for this process of creating art but the sheer exuberance of the dot-making and how Seurat’s technique merged the marks through complementing colors in a phenomenon called ‘optical fusion’ proves his artistry over mere mechanics.

Yet, for me, it was his second element that came through so clear at the exhibition. Through his art and technique, Seurat captures not only his scene with ‘points’ (of paint) but 'points' in time too - the split-second moment of a day, in a harbour view, from a cliff top, as waves crash on a beach.

Seurat’s two large and most widely known works, the Bathers and the Grand Jatte, evince a feeling of deep stillness, almost like they were the painting equivalent to a click of a camera. There is no movement in them - the bathers on the edge of the river, the people at the Grand Jatte are snatched in the moment. Even though they are conjured by so many hundreds or thousands of tiny dots or small jabs of paint, each bouncing off their neighbours, the overall effect is one of a frozen instant.

And so it was for the scenes on the French coast in the exhibition. Seurat’s trademark - pointillism and points in time.

If you get the chance to see the Courtauld exhibition take it - and always take the opportunity to see Seurat's works whereever they are on show.

Seurat and the Sea - at The Courtauld Gallery, London until 17 May 2026 - https://courtauld.ac.uk