paul signac – ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon

Paul Signac, “Blessing of the Tuna Fleet at Groix”, Oil on Canvas, 1923, Minneapolis Institute of Art

Neo- Impressionism flourished from 1886 to 1906. The term was coined by art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe the innovative work of the pioneers of this daring new vision.

Neo-Impressionism extended its reach beyond France to Belgium as well, where an avant-garde group known as Les Vingt (Les XX) embraced Seurat’s ideals following the 1887 exhibition in Brussels of his masterpiece “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte”. Théo van Rysselberghe was also a member of this highly visible Belgian circle. Even Henri Matisse briefly experimented with a Neo-Impressionist technique, prompted in part by the influence of Signac’s treatise “From Eugène Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism” and by the invitation to paint with Signac at his Saint-Tropez residence.

Neo-Impressionists rejected the random spontaneity of Impressionism. They sought to impose order on the visual experience of nature by way of codified, scientific principles. An optical theory known as “mélange optique” was formulated to describe the idea that separate, often contrasting colors would combine in the eye of the viewer to achieve the desired chromatic effect.

The separation of color through individual strokes of pigment came to be known as “Divisionism” while the application of precise dots of paint came to be called “Pointillism.” According to Neo-Impressionist theory, the application of paint in this fashion set up vibrations of colored light that produced an optical purity not achieved by the conventional mixing of pigments on canvas.

Paul Signac, “Place des Lices- Saint Tropez”, Oil on Canvas, 1893, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Paul Signac’s move to the tiny Mediterranean town of St. Tropez in 1892, the year after his friend and mentor Georges Seurat died, was motivated partly by his love of the sea and sailing but mainly by his weariness with the hectic life in Paris and by his desire to modify aspects of Neo-Impressionism. During the early 1890s, Signac began to find the effort of transcribing visual experience with the painstaking pointillist technique increasingly less satisfying.

He wrote, “I shall no longer worry about nature. It is very difficult to paint properly from nature, where one is distracted by its harmonies, by the slightest reflection…I attach more and more importance to purity of brushstroke…” Place des Lices, St. Tropez comes from this important transitional period in Signac’s art. This painting of majestic trees represents a shift in Signac’s choice of motif, a departure from the constant motion of sailboats, clouds, and water to comparative stasis.

Signac surely found satisfaction in the strong arabesque lines of the trees in the Place des Lices, and he used their patterns of shadows and filtered light to animate the painting’s foreground. The angle of sight, reminiscent of earlier Impressionist vistas through allées of trees, establishes a tunnel-like view into the distance, beyond the shadows of the plaza. A single seated figure sets the painting’s tone of tranquil solitude.

The painting is filled with obvious but delightful contrasts—for example, between the seven large plane trees in the foreground and the single tiny cypress in the background. It also makes an association between the cypress and the seated man, each of which is a fulcrum for forms balanced on either side.