Landscape

This haunting work is one of a remarkable body of landscapes Georges Seurat drew in the early 1880s. A lone figure moves along a path through a park setting with a hilly terrain, tended lawns, and tall trees. With its mysterious, twilit atmosphere, Landscape demonstrates the unique shadowy and dramatically lit tenebrist style that the artist developed in that decade. The drawing’s brilliance lies in the breathtaking skill with which Seurat applied Conté crayon, using varying pressure on textured paper to create luminous middle tones counterpoised with solid blacks, demonstrating that Seurat was one of the great masters of black and white.