Port-en-Bessin
Georges Seurat, 1888
For now, just to look at
The photograph we have of this work is not sharp enough to print at the quality we want, so we are not selling it for now. We are looking for a better one.
About the work
- Artist
- Georges Seurat
- Date
- 1888
- Reference
- XDV-1729
What the museum label doesn't tell you
There isn't one sea in this painting - there are six or seven pools of colour pretending to be one. Look closely: each turquoise patch is fenced off from the next by a paler strip, as if the bay had been cut into pieces and reassembled slightly off. It's divisionism pushed into the whole composition: nothing blends, everything sits side by side. The dune up front, by contrast, is smooth, almost liquid. The sea fragments while the land flows - the reverse of what you'd expect. Why does water look more solid than sand here?
