Georges Seurat (1859–1891)
1886
Oil paint on canvas
Honfleur, summer 1886
This work is one of seven canvases begun in Honfleur in 1886, the most productive of Georges Seurat’s seascape campaigns. While all the paintings were started there, they were completed in his Paris studio that autumn and winter. Seurat recalled working on this painting for two and a half months. The site he chose had long been favoured by painters and holidaymakers. Contemporary postcards (see below) set the lighthouse at the centre of a vast expanse of beach and sky. In contrast, Seurat pushed the structure to the very top edge of the canvas, creating a point of tension. In so doing, he turned a traditional scenic view into a more daring composition.
Postcard of Honfleur, ‘The Estuary of the Seine’ around 1890–1910