St Tropez 1906

Paul Signac's watercolour and graphite work gives us his interpretation of the French commune St Tropez. Signac, one of the main dudes involved in developing pointillism, takes a different approach here, with looser, more gestural marks. I can imagine Signac standing right there, squinting, trying to capture the dazzling light of the Mediterranean. The masts of the sailboats feel a bit like scribbles, right? But somehow, those shaky lines give the whole scene this feeling of movement, like everything's shimmering in the heat. The colours are muted, like a hazy memory, which, in a way, is what paintings are: someone’s memory put down on paper. There is a conversation happening in the work too, Signac was super inspired by Claude Monet, and you can totally see how Monet's way of capturing light influenced this piece. It's like artists are always chatting to each other across time, through their paintings.