Seurat and the sea – Courtauld Gallery
Diana Bentley | MSN | 16th February 2026
Seurat’s ‘pointillist’ dotting was a great insight into painting technique. It is not well suited to turbulent or dramatic scenes but is perfect for seascapes, which comprise half of his small output. These images perfectly capture sea haze which appears on still summer days. But there’s more. Such works are calm but also slightly eerie. Perhaps with so little little visual action and few people, our focus returns to Seurat’s depiction of light. Given the intricacy of his technique perhaps that’s exactly what he wanted.