Art in Ads · 02

Why the Boy in the Movie Froze in Front of This Painting

A high school kid skips class, walks into a museum, and stares at one painting for a long, long time.

Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884, 1884–86, border added 1888–89

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884

Georges Seurat1884–86, border added 1888–89

01Where you've seen it

In the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, three friends skip school and wander into the Art Institute of Chicago. Cameron stops in front of this painting, and the camera keeps moving in on the face of a little girl in the picture. The closer it gets, the more her face blurs, until only dots are left.

Two years earlier, in 1984, a Broadway musical called Sunday in the Park with George put Seurat on stage, painting this very picture. At the end of the first act, the cast steps into place like the people in the painting and holds still.

02The real story

Seurat worked on this painting from 1884 to 1886. The canvas is more than three meters wide, and he filled it with small dots of color dabbed on with the tip of the brush. Instead of mixing paint on the palette, he set colors side by side and let the viewer's eye blend them.

When it hung in the last Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1886, it drew a lot of attention. Look to the right for the woman walking a monkey on a leash. The painting has belonged to the Art Institute of Chicago since 1926.

Tell a friend like this

Remember the painting Cameron stares at in that movie? The closer you get, the more the faces break into dots. That's Seurat's trick.

One line is enough.
Next time that painting shows up, your friend will spot it first.

See this painting up close →