Modelo de espaldas

This is a small thing, not much bigger than a postcard, and Seurat painted it on the wooden lid of a cigar box, the kind of cheap panel he used for quick studies and called a croqueton. It is a working sketch for a much larger canvas, Les Poseuses, in which three views of the same nude model, from front, side and back, share one studio. Seurat had a point to prove. Critics said his method of building a picture out of tiny separate dots of colour was cold and mechanical, fit only for parks and factories. With Les Poseuses he answered them by turning that technique on the nude, the oldest and most prestigious subject in painting. Here, on the cigar lid, you can watch him testing how those small dabs of colour add up to a warm human back.