Fishing Fleet at Port en Bessin by Georges Seurat

This restful view is a kind of watery maze with boats circling the breakwaters in the heat of a bright summer day. The canvas is divided into two compartments. A fairly heavy triangular strip of land forms the foreground, while above it dynamic bands of light suggest the breeze swelling the sails and sweeping the sea over which sailboats are gliding in every direction.

In this limpid work, Seurat is especially effective at evoking boats moving toward the horizon. This endows the painting with infinite depth in space.

According to Cesar de Hauke, Seurat exhibited this work in 1888 under the title The Jetties at Port-en-Bessin. Exhibiting it again the following year, he gave it the title by which it is known today. After Seurat's death, however, his family exhibited it twice under the title Port-en-Bessin, The Outer Harbor at High Tide, which is the title of another painting, now in The Louvre.

The surprising beauty of the shadows the clouds cast on the sea, forms a subtle arabesque whose fluidity is further accentuated by the patterns of vegetation in the foreground.