A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Parisians of every class promenade and lounge on a sunny riverbank, frozen in stately profile - a strolling couple, a girl in white, a woman with a parasol and a monkey - the entire scene built from millions of tiny dots of pure, unmixed color meant to fuse in the eye. Seurat spent two years on this huge canvas, applying scientific theories of optics to Impressionism. Now in the Art Institute of Chicago, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is the monument of Pointillism, modern leisure rendered with the stillness and grandeur of an ancient frieze.