Georges Seurat, 'Clothes on the Grass: Study for 'Bathers at Asnières'', 1883

This is one of 13 or 14 oil sketches that Seurat made in preparation for his first large-scale painting, Bathing at Asnières (National Gallery, London). The final work depicts a disparate collection of people swimming and boating on the River Seine or sitting on the steep bank, enjoying the sunshine. Asnières is a suburb of Paris. In the background, Seurat includes the Courbevoie bridge and, on the right, the Île de la Grande Jatte. It was a favourite location for Seurat and he was to set another of his most famous paintings near here (see below). The sketches offer a fascinating insight into how he developed and adjusted his visual ideas when planning the picture. Most of them appear to have been made outside on the riverbank. They show slight shifts in perspective as Seurat changed his position in search of the angles he wanted. This sketch is very close to the final viewpoint, even though it is missing the figures that make the finished painting so distinctive.

Seurat has paid most attention to the river itself. The grass and sky are very roughly sketched in with broad brushstrokes and simple, bright colours. The pile of clothes referred to in the title is also depicted in the most rudimentary way. It looks quite different to the version in the final painting. By contrast, the water’s surface is much more carefully composed with long, even, horizontal brushstrokes. Seurat mixed pink, blue, white and ochre to capture the shimmer of sunlight on the water and the reflections of chimneys and buildings. These belonged to the gas plant and factories at Clichy, on the far bank.

This technique of capturing light effects was in line with an Impressionist style of painting. But Seurat, who was only 24 when he made this sketch, was starting to pursue a different approach. The large size of the finished painting, and the meticulous planning of the composition, would not have appealed to Impressionist painters. They preferred to work more spontaneously and often outdoors. Although he too made sketches outside, Seurat did much of his work in the studio.

He was also interested in theories about colour. He went on to develop the pointillist style of painting using a myriad of coloured dots. The following summer he began to make sketches for his next major work, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (The Art Institute of Chicago), which is set very close to Asnières. This time he made about 30 studies. Two more sketches for Bathing at Asnières are in the National Gallery: The Rainbow and Study for ‘Bathers at Asnières’. Another sketch, A River Bank (The Seine at Asnières), may also have formed part of his preparatory work.