Description
Georges Seurat, The Gardener (1882–83)
A man bends over his work among the trees, in a blue smock and a straw hat. The Gardener is a small painting on wood, 24.8 × 15.9 cm, made in 1882–83; the original is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession 67.187.102.
Labour as the subject
Seurat painted people at work in fields and gardens again and again in these years. The face is hidden; what identifies the man is the angle of a back held over the ground.
Green built from strokes
The foliage is not one green. Short touches of yellow, blue and green sit beside one another so the leaves flicker rather than lie flat – the habit that later became the dots.
The original
Oil on wood, 24.8 × 15.9 cm, painted 1882–83. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876–1967), 1967; accession 67.187.102.
How yours is made
Every canvas we supply is a hand-painted oil painting, not a print. A painter works it stroke by stroke at the size you choose.
An early Seurat, years before the pointillist canvases, and a clear look at how he worked outdoors.
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