La Grande Jatte

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This is the square Alfred Sisley, a small public park on the Île de la Jatte. The Île de la Jatte (formerly called the Île de la Grande Jatte /il də la gʁɑ̃d ʒat/, which means “Big Bowl Island”), is a large island in the middle of the Seine River in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a very chic northwestern suburb of Paris. This little island would be pretty much lost to oblivion were it not for the fact that several famous painters, most notably the French painter Georges Seurat, painted pictures of it. Seurat did a painting of it called called A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, over a hundred years ago, and it became particularly famous.

Seurat worked on his painting over a period of two years, and apparently he was not painting a precise representation of a specific spot. However, the painting looks uncannily like the part of the island that is pictured in this photograph. The painting seems to look northwest on the western shore of the island. Today, on that part of the island, there is still this small park area, and it sure looks a lot like the painting (at least to me). Most of the rest of the western shore of the island is rather steeply inclined with no grass, so I figure that this must have been the spot he had in mind. The park is named after Sisley, one of Seurat's contemporaries.

If you recall the painting, you can see the resemblance here. The Pont de Levallois, in the distance, didn’t exist in 1886, as far as I know. But the shoreline looks similar (albeit a bit more steeply inclined), as does the afternoon sunlight, and the general expanse of the river (which is flowing away from the camera, incidentally). A lot of the space in the painting would be taken up by buildings today, and I think the island has been built up somewhat over time in order to protect against high water. The time of day here is several hours prior to the hour of the painting, by the way. There aren’t many people in the park because this was taken during August, when most people in the Paris region are on vacation.

The island is still very pleasant and quiet, and mostly residential, with a few major firms represented in discreet but elegant offices. There are still boats in the river, and there are still people rowing, although there were none on the river when I took this photo.

Someone asked me once about this island, which is why I added this picture.

The island is in Neuilly, as stated, and is perhaps two kilometres northeast of La Défense, and a little further than that northwest of Paris.

Photographed on August 8, 1999.