Beach at Bas Butin, Honfleur by Georges Seurat

This canvas has been built on the diagonal of the cliff running down to the beach. It is another summer work, done during vacation time when the artist would get away from Paris in order to "freshen his eye." Nearly all these landscapes are clean and sparkling, tinged with blue.

This song of praise for summer light on water and land is one of Seurat's finest paintings. Once more Seurat's technique adapts to the various elements suggested: the vegetation, the cliff, the sandy beach, the sea, the ships in the distance, and the sea mist. Close scrutiny of this canvas reveals a great diversity of brush strokes. Signac, for instance, is much more predictable in the way he piles up his uniform rectangles of color. Seurat lets himself go and allows himself to be enchanted. There is always a point where the artist in him gets the upper hand over the craftsman, and, without eclipsing him entirely, exalts him.

Each of the canvases Seurat executed during his holidays formulates and solves a different problem.