Georges Seurat (1859–1891)
1885, reworked around 1888–89
Oil paint on canvas
Grandcamp, summer 1885
‘La Pointe du Hoc’, also known as ‘Le Bec du Hoc’ after its beak-like shape, was a rocky formation a few kilometres east of Grandcamp. Instead of jutting out to sea, the cliff here seems to float dramatically above it and rises to interrupt the horizon line. In his early seascapes, Georges Seurat used dashes of colour to render the water. The vegetation and rocky terrain are created with short strokes in a criss-cross pattern. Some of the finer dots of colour were added several years later, when Seurat painted a border around the image, as he did for many other works.