Georges Seurat (1884 to 86). A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte [oil on canvas]. The Art Institute of Chicago. Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection.

Seurat builds a work nearly dividing the realism/abstraction scale in equal halves by using a variety of colors that are both value- and purity-based. The scene is crystal-clear with beautiful diminution-based depth receding into space. One of the ingenious aspects to this work is he accomplishes this with figures that are minimally modeled and nearly planar. Their diffuse arrangement, doll-like development and individualism based on dress and not on more humanized features sets a formal gap between artist and observer. 
I believe Egyptian qualities are foundational to this work’s deliberate and masterful design. Near fractional representation can be detected. Figures are oriented parallel to the picture plane, or at a consistent forward, oblique angle approaching perpendicular. This consistency offers a mathematical connection to other works of Seurat such as Circus Sideshow. Careful study reveals subject order based on a hieratic scale. Pictorial form and balance offer more visual variety than typical of ancient Egyptian murals at the exchange of literal, symbol-based meaning. 

Purity- and value-based compositional patterning is a clean break from ancient Egyptian art. The meticulous, exhaustive development of form and interplay of color is set against a seamless backdrop of consistent texture and intuitively pleasing positive and negative space. Given Seurat’s personal views, it’s possible the impersonality and stiffness of the figures and vaguely garish color scheme is a cynical observation of middle class Parisian lifestyles. Another interpretation of this work is that it depicts a location that is normally an eyesore in an idealized fashion. The tragedy of the latter view is that the pristine and peaceful vision Seurat offers in this work is possible in reality.