Lot Essay
During the late 1890s, Signac moved away from his strictly analytical approach to Neo-Impressionist technique. After 1900 he adopted a longer, more rectangular brushstroke and began to work in mosaic-like blocks of paint, placed separately on the white-primed canvas.
By 1908, the year the present painting was executed, his use of colour has become bold, heightened and vibrant. This was partly due to the contact he had made in 1904 with Henri Matisse and Henri Edmond Cross. He also began to treat landscapes with more freedom and painted them in the studio from small sketches he had made on various trips.
In the exhibition catalogue Post Impressionism, Royal Academy, London, 1979-1980, p. 140, John House wrote, "Ancient Roman mosaic work in the Louvre may have caught Signac's attention, but he mentioned mosaic only in passing in his 1898 book. He had adopted this technique before his first opportunity to see the colour effects of medieval mosaic when he visited Venice in 1905."
Felix Fénéon, a friend, writer as well as the spokesman for the Neo-Impressionists, commented on Signac's pictures of this period, "In M. Signac's pictures wave after wave of colour sweeping across the canvas, rising, falling, mingling with other waves and constituting a form of many-coloured expression, that is akin to linear arabesque." Fénéon went on to say, "The opulence of colour which Paul Signac has at his command is employed in compositions whose rhythmic audacity and sustained power call to mind the names of such heroes of painting as Poussin and Claude." (Exhibition Catalogue, Paul Signac, London, 1954, p. 9).
Signac visited the Veneto for the first time in 1905, and again in 1908 when the present work was painted.
By 1908, the year the present painting was executed, his use of colour has become bold, heightened and vibrant. This was partly due to the contact he had made in 1904 with Henri Matisse and Henri Edmond Cross. He also began to treat landscapes with more freedom and painted them in the studio from small sketches he had made on various trips.
In the exhibition catalogue Post Impressionism, Royal Academy, London, 1979-1980, p. 140, John House wrote, "Ancient Roman mosaic work in the Louvre may have caught Signac's attention, but he mentioned mosaic only in passing in his 1898 book. He had adopted this technique before his first opportunity to see the colour effects of medieval mosaic when he visited Venice in 1905."
Felix Fénéon, a friend, writer as well as the spokesman for the Neo-Impressionists, commented on Signac's pictures of this period, "In M. Signac's pictures wave after wave of colour sweeping across the canvas, rising, falling, mingling with other waves and constituting a form of many-coloured expression, that is akin to linear arabesque." Fénéon went on to say, "The opulence of colour which Paul Signac has at his command is employed in compositions whose rhythmic audacity and sustained power call to mind the names of such heroes of painting as Poussin and Claude." (Exhibition Catalogue, Paul Signac, London, 1954, p. 9).
Signac visited the Veneto for the first time in 1905, and again in 1908 when the present work was painted.