Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp

Seurat spent the summer of 1885 at Grandcamp on the Normandy coast, and from the cliffs he painted this headland, the Bec du Hoc, a limestone crag about 35 metres high curving out over the sea. The shadowed face of the rock is built from dense, angled strokes, the sea from short horizontal lines of colour flecked with white for foam and glare. Five swallows wheel above it. In 1888, before showing the picture again, he went back over the surface with fine touches and painted the dotted border around the edge, its colours shifting against whatever they frame. The rock itself is mostly gone. The Germans fortified it in the Second World War, and in 1944, with the Normandy landings, most of the fragile outcrop was destroyed. Only a stub still stands.