Man with a Hoe

Georges Seurat

National Gallery of Art

This painting shows a person bent over, working the land outdoors. The person is in the center of the painting, surrounded by green grass and dark trees. The sky is not visible. In the bottom left corner, there is a section of brown earth. The person leans over the edge of this patch, putting a tool with a long handle to the ground. The person is dressed in gray clothes and wears a dark hat. The brushstrokes in the painting are broad, short, and visible. Small strokes of different colors are layered over one another, giving the scene an indistinct and hazy look. The color palette includes greens, dark blues, yellows, browns, and ochres, all overlapping with one another, almost like a kaleidoscope.