Seurat used line by dividing the composition of the painting into three simple horizontal bands using outline. The foreground space is in a dark green color depicting shadow. A large light yellow-green area of sunlit grass forms the shape in the middle ground. And a blue -green band of trees and sky make up the background. These three distinct forms in the composition, divide up the space in the scene.
Along with dividing the composition into bands, Seurat's depiction of space can also be seen in the more than forty figures in this painting having been simplified into basic shapes. The figures in the foreground shadow are seen slightly above the viewer. Using linear perspective, the figures in the yellow-green, middle ground are at the viewer’s eye-level or horizon line. This attention to perspective is one of the ways Seurat gave the viewer the feeling of items moving back in space on a two dimensional plane.
Seurat's painting style, pointillism, divides simple shape that make up the figures into small dots and dashes of color. For example in the depiction of the little girl who can be found in the middle of the canvas, Seurat used primary colors to create the image of the little girl, the only figure in the composition who looks out at the viewer. The small marks he used are tints, the color plus white, red, blue, and yellow. The dashes, tiny circles, and hatchings follow the shape of the object. Circular dashes describe the roundness of the girl’s hat, where as diagonal dashes show the sweeping motion of the ruffel on the dress.