Study for 'Le Chahut'

A troupe of dancers perform the chahut, a high-kicking dance popular in Parisian nightclubs in the late 19th century. Georges Seurat was drawn to scenes of popular entertainment because their staging and artificiality offered fertile ground for exploring the theories of colour and movement central to his work. The red, blue and green palette, as well as the numerous lines and angles flaring upward, functioned, in his eyes, as abstract symbols of gaiety.

The missing painted border on the right indicates that the panel may have been cut down.