The Circus was his last painting, made in a Neo-Impressionist style in 1890-91, and remained unfinished at his death in March 1891. Seurat used a Divisionist style, with pointillist dots creating the sense of other colours. The work is dominated by white and the three primary colours, mainly red and yellow with blue shading. A deeper blue border painted around the edge of the canvas, merging into a flat frame in the same shade of blue.
The painting is divided into two spaces, with the circus artists occupying the lower right, characterised by curves and spirals creating a sense of movement, and the audience occupying the upper left, confined to rows of benches. The audience shows the distinctions between social classes sitting in rows, from the well-dressed higher classes near the front (sitting in the front row, in a top hat, is Seurat's friend and fellow painter Charles Angrand) to the lower classes in the gallery at the back. A sense of space is created by the whiteface clown in the foreground, facing away from the viewer, and the tiers of bleachers. Another pair of clowns are tumbling to the right behind the ringmaster.
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Models
sketch series