Focus on The Circus (Seurat) and explore the Description.
The work measures 185 × 152 centimetres (73 × 60 in) (dimensions with frame painted by the artist: 232 x 198.5 cm). Seurat used a Neo-Impressionist 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.
Seurat made few preparatory studies, concentrating on creating dynamic lines and using few colours.
primary colour Divisionist whiteface pointillist Charles Angrand Neo-Impressionist