Paul Signac - Artwork, Relationship with Van Gogh

Van Gogh's Friends

Youth of Paul Signac

Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863. He followed a course of training in architecture before deciding at the age of 18 to pursue a career as a painter. He sailed around the coasts of Europe, painting the landscapes he encountered. He also painted scenes of cities in France in his later years.

In 1884 he met Claude Monet and Georges Seurat. He was struck by the systematic working methods of Seurat and by his theory of colors and became Seurat's faithful supporter.

Under his influence he abandoned the short brushstrokes of impressionism to experiment with scientifically juxtaposed small dots of pure color, intended to combine and blend not on the canvas but in the viewer's eye, the defining feature of pointillism.

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Painted Confetti

Paul Signac's best-known works were meticulously painted with a fine brush in brightly colored dots, a method described by contemporary critics as painted confetti and artistic smallpox. Along with his close friend Georges Seurat, Signac played a crucial role in the development of this new, radical style which, unlike Impressionism, emphasized discipline, elegance and harmony.

At the start of his career as an artist Signac often worked in the suburbs of Paris. Here he chose unusual and sometimes ugly industrial subjects, such as this railway junction in Asnières, to the northwest of Paris. Signac painted the railway yard with broad brushstrokes in fairly muted colors, a far cry from the bright hues of his later paintings and lithographs. The strong verticals of the trees and telegraph poles are a striking feature of the work. By positioning a dark form in the foreground, the artist created a vista and thus introduced greater depth in the picture.

From 1886 Signac acted as the spokesman for Neo-Impressionism inside and outside Parisian avant-garde artists circles. He introduced the new movement at the eighth exhibition of the impressionists, and proclaimed the theories of his friend and mentor Georges Seurat. Signac?s contacts with members of the Belgian group of artists Les XX encouraged the dissemination of Neo-Impressionism in Belgium.

> Read more ... A fresh look at the unsung master of Neo-Impressionism

Paul Signac and Van Gogh

In 1886 Signac met Vincent van Gogh in Paris. In 1887 the two artists regularly went to Asnières together, where they painted such subjects as river landscapes and cafés.

Initially, Van Gogh chiefly admired Signac?s loose painting technique and the unexpected compositions he employed in his early work, such as in this picture of the railway junction. However, the Dutch artist mainly applied Signac?s experiments with contrasting spots of color, the product of Neo-Impressionism, in his Paris paintings.

At the time, Van Gogh was inspired by Paul Signac see the painting of Van Gogh.

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