Port-en-Bessin, Entrance to the Harbor

In the summer of 1888 Seurat left Paris for Port-en-Bessin, a small fishing harbor on the Normandy coast, and painted it over and over from different spots. This is one of that group. Where an Impressionist like Monet tried to catch a passing moment of light in a single fast sitting, Seurat did nearly the opposite. He built the scene from thousands of small separate dots of pure color, set side by side to blend in the eye rather than on the palette, and much of that slow work was finished indoors. Look at the very edge of the canvas. The speckled band running around the picture was painted by Seurat too, dots in darker and opposite colors laid down to make the blues and greens inside look brighter. The harbor sits perfectly still, every wave and sail held in place.