  About the Artwork
  
  
  Seurat's unique style of painting (called pointillism, divisionism, or neo-impressionism) was based on scientific theories of how the optical nerve transmits juxtaposed colors to the brain. Seurat painted a border of complementary colors along the edge of the canvas to act as a transition for the darker values painted on the adjoining wooden frame. These dark edges help the painting appear more luminous against the frame, which was designed specifically by the artist to be visually unobtrusive to the image.
  
  
  Title
  View of Le Crotoy from Upstream
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1889
  
  Artist
  Georges Pierre Seurat
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1859-1891
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  French
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
  ----------
  
  
  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 27 3/4 × 34 1/8 inches (70.5 × 86.7 cm)
  Framed: 38 7/8 × 45 1/8 × 1 5/8 inches (98.7 × 114.6 × 4.1 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Modern Art to 1970
  
  
  Credit
  Bequest of Robert H. Tannahill
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  70.183
  
  
  Copyright
  ----------
