Le mouillage à Grandcamp by Georges Seurat

Georges Seurat
1859-1891 | French

Le mouillage à Grandcamp

Oil on panel

Entitled Le mouillage à Grandcamp, this exceptional oil on panel was painted by Georges Seurat at a pivotal moment in both his artistic development and in art history. Hailing from the earliest stages of the Neo-Impressionist movement, the colorful and avant-garde seascape is a testament to the utter freedom of creativity the artist enjoyed at this important point in his career.

Now known as Pointillism, Seurat’s revolutionary technique was based on the theory of optical mixture by the division of tones. While spending the summer of 1885 in Grandcamp, a small fishing village in Normandy, Seurat embarked on a series of marine paintings, including this magnificent work, that fully expressed his new theories on light, color, perception and optics. It was through these small works that he perfected Pointillism. Though Seurat’s belief he could scientifically apply complementary colors to create harmony and emotion in art was highly controversial at the time, it is regarded today as one of the most innovative movements in the history of art.

Le mouillage à Grandcamp is an exceptional illustration of this burgeoning movement, depicting a sea of mosaic-like blue, green and yellow brushstrokes. The distant buildings are secondary to the overall painterly effect, appearing to fade into the line of the horizon. Seurat often allowed the warm brown tone of his panels to show through as background color, and here the sand lends the work a deep compositional unity. The overcast sky is brought to life by a profusion of light, one of Seurat’s virtuosic abilities, and the electric sea appears smoldering with light.

Seurat’s sojourn in Grandcamp was the turning point in his style. Coveted by collectors and connoisseurs alike, Seurat's important 1885 Normandy coast scenes have been collected by numerous important museums, including New York's Museum of Modern Art, London's Tate and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. So refreshed by the trip, when Seurat returned to Paris following his travels, he once again turned to his composition A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte. This time he applied the techniques he had developed in Grandcamp, and the result was art history’s greatest Pointillist masterpiece.

Le mouillage à Grandcamp has been widely exhibited and published in literature, including H. Dorra et J. Rewald’s 1959 catalogue raisonné, Seurat, L'œuvre peint, Biographie et catalogue critique, page 169.

Circa 1885

Panel: 6 1/4" high x 9 7/8" wide (15.88 x 25.08 cm)
Frame: 15 1/4" high x 18 5/8" wide x 2 3/8" deep (38.74 x 47.31 cm)

View the Dossier

Provenance:
Artist’s studio
Emile Seurat, Paris
Félix Fénéon, Paris
Alfred Vallotton, Paris
Léon Marseille, Paris
Georges Lévy, Paris
Private collection, New York
Sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 6 February 1947, lot 63
Antoine Salomon, Paris
Huguette Bérès, Paris
Private collection
M.S. Rau, New Orleans

Exhibitions: La Revue blanche, Georges Seurat, Œuvres peintes et dessinées, Paris, March-April 1900, no. 18
Grandes Serres de la Ville de Paris, XXIe Salon des Artistes Indépendants, Paris, March-April 1905, p. 14, no. 15
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Rétrospective Georges Seurat, Paris, December 1908-janvier 1909, no. 52
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Georges Seurat, Paris, January 1920, no. 17
Galerie Paul Rosenberg, Seurat, Paris, February 1936, no. 43
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Seurat 1859-1891, Paris, April-August 1991, p. 277, no. 158 (exhibition traveled)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seurat 1859-1891, New York, September 24 1991-January 12,1992,p. 237, no. 159.

Literature:
G. Coquiot, Seurat, Paris, 1924, p. 119
H. Dorra et J. Rewald, Seurat, L'œuvre peint, Biographie et catalogue critique, Paris, 1959, p. 169, no. 142 (illustrated)
C. M. de Hauke, Seurat et son œuvre, Paris, 1961, vol. I, p. 98, no. 146 (illustrated, p. 99)
F. Minervino, Tout l’œuvre peint de Seurat, Paris, 1973, p. 103, no. 146 (illustrated, p. 102)
Dominique Lobstein, Dictionnaire des indépendants: 1884-1914, Dijon, France, L'Echelle de Jacob, 2003, p. 1582-1584
M.F. Zimmermann, Les Mondes de Seurat, Fonds Mercator, Paris, 1991