C'est l'heure de notre leçon particulière !
Aujourd'hui le pointillisme avec Paul Signac, point par point
https://www.beauxarts.com/grand-format/lecon-3-paul-signac-le-pointillisme-point-par-point/
#Art #Peinture #Pointillisme #PaulSignac

"Women at the Well, Opus 238." Paul Signac, 1892.

I've talked about Signac before. While I'm not a huge fan of Pointillism, and I consider Seurat overrated (there, I said it, I expect people to unfollow me now), but his works have a certain appeal.

Here we have two ladies at a well overlooking the Mediterranean. This scene is just DRENCHED with sunlight; in fact, the yellowness of the grass hints that there might be a bit of a drought going on. Signac would spend half of each year at Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera, where his paintings sought to depict an ideal society. This was originally to have been part of a grander, sweeping canvas....but he decided the two ladies at the well were enough.

This is also a great example of "artistic license" as a concept. Most of the elements here do exist...the lighthouse, the well, the distant mountains, the citadel on a hill....but they don't exist together like this. But he put them together to make an idealized view. Kind of like putting the Washington Monument next to the Empire State Building in a picture...

Makes me think of summer...

From the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Przypatrujemy się "Widokowi portu w Marsylii" Paula Signaca . Artysta stosował technikę pointylizmu, co nadaje obrazowi unikalny efekt świetlny i kolorystyczny . Przepełniony energią i dynamiką port ożywa na płótnie poprzez drobne pociągnięcia pędzla. To dzieło pokazuje, jak technika może zmienić percepcję miejskiego krajobrazu. #Sztuka #Pointylizm #PaulSignac #Marsylia
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https://blog.plastycznyonline.pl/2024/10/10/widok-portu-w-marsylii-interpretacja-dziela-paula-signaca/

"Collioure, the Belltower, Opus 164," Paul Signac, 1887.

I've talked about Signac (1863-1935) before, so I wont go much into his biography, except to note that he was one of the developers of pointillism, a style where, instead of brushstrokes, the artist forms his image out of many tiny dots, like how television screens would operate in the future.

Georges Seurat is THE great pointillist, but honest, I don't care for most of his work; I find his handling of human beings clumsy and artificial. But that's a me thing. I'm not big on pointillism overall, but for Signac, I'll make some exceptions. He's done a few paintings I like that function well beyond being demonstrations of technique.

This charming scene is of the harbor of Collioure, on France's Mediterranean coast. That dramatic belltower was also once a lighthouse, which explains its position in the water. But it works well as a simple sun-drenched scene of the Mediterranean, which Signac loved and painted often.

From the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

"Still Life with a Book and Oranges," Paul Signac, 1883.

Signac (1863-1935) was a post-Impressionist who developed the style of Pointillism with Seurat. He started off as an architecture student but when he saw a Monet exhibition in 1880, he abandoned it for art. This is one of his earlier works...amazing to think he was only twenty!

I'm usually not much for Pointillism, but I do appreciate his style here, which is more based on dashes than dots. This was a period when he was experimenting heavily with technique and material; I'm told artists like to use still lifes as a medium for experimentation.

SIgnac had a long and successful career as an artist, and was famous for his depictions of France's Mediterranean coast. An avowed anarchist, he had dreams of forming an anarchist utopia in the south of France; he would probably be appalled at what is there now. He also wrote a number of books on art history, theory, and technique, which are still influential today.

From the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

Paul Signac - The Port of Saint-Tropez, 1901-1902