Horses in the Water by Georges Seurat

This is one of many preliminary studies for Bathing at Asnières, and one of four including horses; it is a little gem.

Seurat was familiar with Corot's remarks on painting, including this one:

It seemed to me very important to prepare a painting or a study for a painting by first indicating the most vigorous tones ( assuming that the canvas is white) and proceeding systematically thereafter until the palest tone is reached. I would distinguish twenty degrees on the scale from the most vigorous to the lightest tone .... Always keep in mind the picture as a whole and the striking elements of the scene. Never lose sight of your first impression, what it was that actually moved you."

When he began painting, Seurat never forgot to put down his darkest and his lightest tones before anything else. Once he had these two poles to be guided by, the rest of the picture fell into place and he could organize a gamut of halftones and nuances.

This small panel is extraordinarily luminous. Seurat's brush stroke is here gaining discipline: given free rein in the foliage, it is applied horizontally on the water.

There is great sureness in the inverted-triangle composition and in the richness of the modulations and reflections. Together they make this little picture a marvel of life and color.

This is perhaps the finest of the twenty-five studies for Bathing at Asnieres. Seurat wondered for a long time whether he should place the black horse and the white horse together or separately, but in the end, he left them out entirely.