“Courbevoie, Landscape With Turret” is an oil on wood artwork by Georges Seurat, created in the period between 1883 and 1884 in France. Seurat, known for his pivotal role in the development of Pointillism and Neo-Impressionism, masterfully employs these techniques in this landscape painting, which is retained in a private collection.
The artwork presents a vignette of Courbevoie, an area near Paris, with a focus on a landscape that features a prominent turret. This structure stands as a distinguished element within a tapestry of lush foliage. The scenery is imbued with a multitude of hues, indicative of Seurat’s Pointillism, where individual spots of color, viewed from a distance, blend in the observer’s eye to create the desired image and palette.
Seurat’s use of light and shadow is evident across the artwork, which reflects upon the water in the foreground with a shimmering effect, suggesting the time of day may be during the late afternoon when the sun’s angle enriches the landscape with warm tones. The rhythm of colors and the application of small, distinct dots contribute to a shimmering vibrancy, a hallmark characteristic of the Neo-Impressionist movement.
Intriguingly, the composition delineates the division between the reflective surface of the water and the solidity of the land, with the turret acting as an anchoring point amidst this transition. The overall impression is serene, with the artwork capturing a moment in time that conveys both the tranquility and the ephemeral quality of light within nature.
