Description
Georges Seurat, The Stone Breaker (about 1882)
The Stone Breaker is a small painting on wood, 24.13 × 14.61 cm: a man bent over a heap of stones in a blue working smock. Seurat carried panels like this outdoors and painted in front of the subject. The original is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, accession 2014.18.50.
Labour without sentiment
Breaking stones was the hardest and worst-paid work there was. Seurat neither prettifies it nor preaches about it: he puts a body in a space and lets the posture carry the meaning.
Millet and Barbizon
The subject comes out of the Barbizon tradition that put the labourer at the centre of the picture. Seurat takes it up and is already breaking it into separate touches of colour.
The original
Oil on wood, 24.13 × 14.61 cm, painted about 1882. National Gallery of Art, Washington; accession 2014.18.50.
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 from the years when he painted work and the people who did it.
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