1882 -1888 · banks, industry and modern leisure

From Courbevoie to Grande Jatte, Seurat looks at the Seine as a mobile border where fishermen, linen, fireplaces, boats and walkers share a reconstructed light.

The Seine accompanies the decisive years of Georges Seurat. Its small panels from the early 1880s, easy to hold in the open air, capture the banks of Asnières or Courbevoie in short touches, with commercial barges and industrial chimneys behind the fishermen. The river is therefore not a timeless refuge: it connects work, suburbs and new leisure activities. At La Grande Jatte, Seurat takes up the motif after his large compositions and constructs more methodical surfaces; the water becomes a mosaic of reflections, the banks of horizontal bands and the silhouettes of measured accents. Honfleur, one evening, at the mouth of the Seine finally opens his gaze towards the port and the sea. From one work to another, the real current counts less than the way in which the bank, hull, smoke and reflection stabilize the luminous sensation. The "Seine de Georges Seurat" selection notably compares View of the Seine and The Seine in Courbevoie. Its reading favors the material.

At Seurat, the river seems calm because each touch receives a specific place, not because modern life has disappeared.