Trees (study for La Grande Jatte)

Trees is one of 40 studies Georges Seurat did for his masterpiece, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884. With these studies, the artist refined the individual elements of his composition so that together they would form a harmonious whole. Here he focused on the trees near the riverbank, using the rich tones of the conté crayon and the grainy paper surface to approximate the appearance of his paintings. In the final painting, Seurat combined the tree in the foreground and the one leaning out over the river in order to orient the composition toward the water.