Brief Report

The study with the view of the bay of St Tropez was painted by Signac in 1895 during his seven-month sojourn on the Côte d'Azur (fig. 1). As his picture support, he chose an unprimed poplar panel in the standard size P[aysage] 3. A briskly executed drawing of the main forms of the motif was followed by applications of paint in which blue, yellow and orange predominate. The colours, lightened mostly with white, were applied with brushstrokes of varying lengths, some of them exhibiting curves. Some of the applications look rather less than smooth, which may be due either to the use of viscous paint or, and this is more probable, to the absorbency of the wood of the picture support, which may have been only insufficiently prepared, if at all. The surface of the wood was integrated into the largely horizontal brushwork of the colour composition, and the painting was probably completed in one session. The final pale yellow brushstrokes may have matched the original colour of the wood and thus underscored the open character of this spontaneous plein air study. This cannot however be seen today, as the visible areas of the presumably once very pale surface of the wood are now a deep brown. This change in colour is due not only to natural browning, but also to a later coating with varnish, which made its own contribution to the colour saturation of the already much darkened poplar. The extent to which the colour composition of this study has changed as a result can be seen by looking at a painted reconstruction on a fresh poplar panel (fig. 12). The signature in the bottom right-hand corner extends to the edge of the picture where the wood is visible (fig. 7). Signac is said to have added it only in the early 1920s [Cachin/Ferretti-Bocquillon 2000, p. 219].

Paul Signac
Saint-Tropez, calm, 1895, oil on poplar, 18.5 x 27.2 cm, WRM Dep. FC 683

Paul Signac

born on 11 November 1863 in Paris,
died on 15 August 1935 ibidem

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

UV fluorescence


Fig. 05

IR reflectogram


Fig. 06

X-ray


Fig. 07

Detail, signature


Fig. 08

Detail, top edge of picture with fingerprints in paint layer


Fig. 09

Wet-in-wet paint applications, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 10

Detail, drawn indications (top, IR reflectogram) and working-out in colour (bottom, normal incident light) of the rocks and teh coastal scenery


Fig. 11

Direct comparison of fresh poplar (top) and mahagony (bottom)


Fig. 12

Painted reconstruction of fresh poplar panel