Paul Signac Essay

Paul Victor Jules Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the style of pointillist. He was born in Paris on November 11, 1863. He started out as an architect before deciding that he should be a painter at eighteen years of age. He sailed around the coasts of Europe, and painted the landscapes. He also painted the cities in France in his later years. Paul Signac met Claude Monet and Georges Seurat in 1884. He was struck by the systematic working methods of Seurat and his color theory. He 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
Signac owned a house in St. Tropez and he left the capitol of France each summer to go down to it or to stay with friends in other cities. In March of 1889, he visited Vincent van Gogh in Arles. The next year he made a trip to Italy to see Genoa, Florence, and Naples.
Signac loved to sail and began to travel in 1892. He sailed a small boat to almost all the ports of France, Holland, and around the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople. He based his boat at St. Tropez, which he said he "discovered". From his various ports, Signac brought back vivacious, interesting watercolors, sketched promptly from nature. From these sketches came something unusual of Signac. He painted large studio canvases that are carefully worked out in small, mosaic-like squares of color, quite different from the tiny, variegated dots previously used by Seurat.
Signac himself experimented with various types of media. This list includes oil paintings and watercolors. He made etchings, lithographs, and many pen-and-ink sketches composed of small, painstakingly crafted dots. The neo-impressionists influenced the next generation. Signac inspired Henri Matisse and Andre Derain in particular, playing a decisive role in the evolution of