End of the Jetty at Honfleur by Georges Seurat

End of the Jetty at Honfleur was formerly owned by Paul Adam, whose early praise of Seurat was extremely prophetic. We have the whole sea here - the small dune, the lighthouse on the jetty, the open sea in the distance.

All this is done with a few touches and one or two verticals. The emphatic dark tone of the piling on the right holds the design in balance all by itself; it opens the picture out to depth. The light mist and the salt air seem to come right up to the viewer's face.

The delicacy and sparseness of the muffled tones, the way the overall drawing and the sensitivity of the brush strokes emerge simultaneously, how the feeling expands, not just in space but also in time, the mist, the marvelous specks of color-it is an enchanting picture.

The painter has entered directly into dialogue with these things; like all shy persons, he was given to silent contemplation. At the spectacle of nature, he grew enthusiastic. Henri de Regnier pointed it out in a poem:

An ardent soul dwelt in you, Seurat.
I've not forgotten. You were grave, untroubled,
Gentle, taciturn. You knew how much we squander
Of ourselves in idle, rumbling words.

Here the painter held converse with water, earth, and sky.