Why There’s More to Seurat’s Shimmering Masterpiece Than Meets the Eye

A vivid and telling portrait of the Parisian bourgeois in the sun

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1886) by Georges Seurat. Oil on canvas. 207.5 × 308.1 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, U.S. Image source Wikimedia Commons

It is worth noting from the outset that this is an enormous painting. Measuring more than 2 × 3 metres, Georges Seurat’s depiction of a Sunday afternoon in Paris appears, at first glance, to be a monumental celebration of the carefree…