When Georges Seurat began his studies for what would become A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, he was not yet the founder of Pointillism, but a young artist searching for a new way to capture modern life. La Grande Jatte (Study I), painted in 1884, is the earliest surviving oil sketch for this ambitious project. The painting marks the very first time Seurat experimented with the divided brushstrokes that would later define his mature style.

Contemporary critics were puzzled: “M. Seurat’s little dots are as mysterious as the fog on the Seine,” wrote one Parisian reviewer in 1886, reflecting the public’s uncertainty about his radical approach. The scene unfolds on the banks of the Seine, where Parisians from all walks of life gather for leisure. In this study, Seurat captures the fleeting moment of a sunny afternoon: a woman in a bustle skirt shades herself with a parasol, a child tugs at her mother’s dress, and a man reclines on the grass, pipe in hand.

The loose, almost flickering touches of paint suggest movement and light, rather than the crisp outlines of the final painting. Unlike Manet’s bustling scenes of urban Paris, Seurat’s composition is calm and ordered, each figure carefully placed to create a sense of balance. The river glimmers in the background, a ribbon of blue separating the figures from the city beyond. As a preparatory work, La Grande Jatte (Study I) was never intended for public exhibition, and its early history is not well documented.

It likely remained in Seurat’s studio until after his death in 1891, when interest in his methods began to grow. Today, the study is valued not only as a step toward Seurat’s most famous painting, but as a window into his creative process and the birth of Neo-Impressionism. Its unfinished quality allows us to see Seurat’s hand at work, testing ideas that would change the course of modern art.

The painting now hangs in a major museum collection, where it invites viewers to trace the origins of a revolution in seeing.