The god of small things: Seurat and the sea – review

Georges Seurat died at 31, having completed about 45 paintings, more than half of them of the Channel coast and sea during summer trips between 1885 and 1890. Seurat and the Sea at the Courtauld is the first exhibition devoted entirely to these works: 23 paintings and smaller oil studies, and three drawings, arranged across two rooms.

It is a quietly tremendous show. Seurat insisted on science and colour theory to set his work apart from impressionism, yet his paintings often feel peculiar and strange. His line can be odd and stiff, while his tonal drawings in conté crayon on textured, laid paper are among the most marvellous pieces here.

He sometimes added borders of painted dots years after finishing a work; those frames have mostly been discarded and lost. His pointillist technique—cumulative little strokes and pustules of pigment—can create a veil between viewer and image, especially across large expanses of sand, cliff or harbour.

georges seurat, pointillism, colour theory, courtauld, channel coast, sea paintings, conté crayon, laid paper, oil studies, impressionism