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Meeting Seurat
In 1884 Signac was introduced to Claude Monet
and Georges Seurat. Signac was particularly struck by the scientific theory
and methods employed by Seurat in his art, and he became a faithful supporter.
Seurat was leading the direction in Post-Impressionism.
When he met Signac, he had just started painting his most famous work
- A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-1886,
The Art Institute of Chicago). This painting went on to alter the direction
of modern art by introducing Neo-Impressionism,
and is now seen as one of the most iconic paintings of the 19th century.
Seurat was experimenting and writing papers on colour, it's optical effects
and perception. He believed that a painter could use colour to create
an emotional effect in the viewer, and he could do this by manipulating
colour intensity, juxtaposing complimentary colours as well as using the
strength of horizontal and vertical lines. Seurat called this artistic
language Chromoluminarism. For example, sadness, he stated, could
be achieved by using dark, cold colours and by pointing lines downwards.
Signac was tireless in his attempts to convert other artists to Seurat's
methods, and when he met Pissarro, he managed to persuade the Impressionist
to also adopt Seurat's technique.
Pointillism
This technique in painting was developed by Seurat in 1886. Pointillism
was a method where the artist painted small dots of pure colour, side
by side, allowing the eye to optically mix the colour itself. As a technique,
it is closely related to Divisionism. Where Divisionism however
is more about the science of colour, Pointillism is more about the specific
style of brush stroke used - a brushstroke that leaves dots of paints
on the canvas. The main proponents of this movement, were Seurat, Signac
and Henri-Edmond Cross. Signac's first large-scale attempt at Pointillism
was his Two Milliners (c.1885, Buhrle collection, Zurich). In 1886
Pissarro invited the Pointillists to join the last Impressionist Group
show in Paris. Signac's paintings in the 1880s tended to focus more on
domestic scenes, but this changed when he discovered sailing in 1892.
Seascapes
In the early 1890s Signac spent some time traveling around the South of
France coast, visiting Van Gogh in Arles and finally buying a house in
St Tropez. He loved sailing, and in 1892 he bought a small boat which
he used to travel to all the ports in France. From this period onwards,
his palette lightened in colour and he focused primarily on seascapes
and painting ports and boats. He would sketch in watercolour or pencil,
drawing rapidly and then return to his studio to produce oil versions
on canvas. The earlier dots of Pointillism matured into larger squares,
mosaic-like, in rich colours. Popular paintings from this time include
Harbour at Marseilles (1906, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg), Port
of La Rochelle (1921, Musee d'Orsay, Paris); Port of Marseilles
(1905, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Blessing of the tuna
fleet at Groix (1923, Minneapolis Institute of Arts).
Between the period 1891 and 1893, Signac was also briefly a member of
the French arm of Les Vingt group. This was a group of artists
who exhibited together and shared an interest in Symbolism.
Signac admired JMW Turner and the Dutch artist Jongkind,
about whom he published a monograph in 1927. By the 1920s the idea of
Pointillism had long ceased to be avant-garde, but Signac steadfastly
pursued the development of Seurat's colour theories. He published a book
From Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, which summarised these theories,
and did much to influence the next generation of artists, many of whom
he encouraged by buying their paintings - he was the first to buy a painting
by Henri Matisse. Signac became President of the Salon des Independents
from 1908, and used his position to encourage new movements by organising
exhibitions of the Fauves, Nabis and Cubists. He died in Paris in 1935.
Paintings by Paul Signac can be seen in
many of the best art museums throughout
the world.
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