.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
There is little in this glowing sunset scene of Cannes that would outwardly suggest the critical time during which Signac painted it. The Great War was in its fourth stalemated year of carnage. Russia was in throes of the Bolshevik revolution. A pacifist and a humanitarian, Signac had been shocked at the sudden and uncontrollable escalation of events that led the European powers to draw up sides and declare war in August 1914. He wrote to his wife Berthe: "I really think that I shall never be able to recover from the appalling distress in which I am sinking, despite my efforts" (quoted in exh. cat., op. cit., 2001, p. 314).
Signac lamented in a letter to a friend in 1917 that he had been unable to paint for the previous three years. This was not entirely true, but his production had been severely curtailed. Between the outbreak of the war and the armistice of November 1918, Signac painted only seventeen canvases: none in the remainder of 1914, only one in 1915, and then only a handful in each of the next three years of hostilities. He sold some of the few pictures he completed, but only as necessary to sustain himself, his new companion, Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange, and their household in Antibes--in any case, there was not much of an art market during the war. Then in his fifties, he was too old to be called up for service, but many of the younger artists whom he had befriended and championed were in harm's way. Keeping them in his thoughts, he closed the doors of the annual Salon des Indépendants for the duration of the war.
The few paintings that Signac completed during the later years of the war must have been a balm for his troubled spirit. They depict familiar sites along the Côte d'Azur in Antibes, Saint-Tropez and Cannes. Only one painting alludes to the war: Le nuage rose, 1916, in which a squadron of torpedo boats skirts the horizon, while a solitary fishing boat--perhaps emblematic of the artist himself--sails by in the foreground. A huge, ominous reddish cloud towers like a massive explosion in the distance (Cachin, no. 509; fig. 1).
In Les Allées, Cannes, Signac has framed two sides of the painting with the twisting, dance-like arabesque of an old seaside pine tree. The present composition is reminiscent of several Signac painted in 1917 that treat a similar view of Antibes, seen in varying opalescent tonalities of late afternoon light (fig. 2). These works show Signac in the middle phase of his career employing a freer, more purposely expressive but no less subtle development of his divisionist technique. Les Allées, Cannes belongs properly to this reflective moment. Though dated 1920 by the artist, Les Allées, Cannes was included in 1918 in the chronology for the major Signac retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2001; the curators cite a letter from Signac to Félix Fénéon confirming Signac had this work in hand when he saw Matisse and Marquet in Antibes in April of 1918 and sold the painting to Léon Marseille later that same month. Having situated himself on the beach east of the town, the painter looked at the same horizon daily and painted it from various vantage points--some views fixated on the ships at sail framed, as here, by the magnificent gnarled trees, and others focused on the port and lighthouses in the vicinity.
This painting may be enjoyed for its purely scenic qualities, its ripe, iridescent colors and tranquil sea. Given Signac's serious state-of-mind during this time, however, there is another, more significant dimension as well. In these pictures Signac created the haven of a separate peace, far removed from mechanized carnage which the European powers had so grievously inflicted upon one another, and here he dreams that the age-old Mediterranean culture and way of life, so profoundly harmonized with nature and the sea, will endure and outlast the barbarism of war.
(fig. 1) Paul Signac, Le nuage rose (Antibes), 1916. The Isabelle and Scott Black Collection. BARCODE 27237496
(fig. 2) Paul Signac, Antibes, petit port de Bacon, 1917. Sold, Christie's, Paris, 21 May 2008, lot 55. Barcode: 27249413
Signac lamented in a letter to a friend in 1917 that he had been unable to paint for the previous three years. This was not entirely true, but his production had been severely curtailed. Between the outbreak of the war and the armistice of November 1918, Signac painted only seventeen canvases: none in the remainder of 1914, only one in 1915, and then only a handful in each of the next three years of hostilities. He sold some of the few pictures he completed, but only as necessary to sustain himself, his new companion, Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange, and their household in Antibes--in any case, there was not much of an art market during the war. Then in his fifties, he was too old to be called up for service, but many of the younger artists whom he had befriended and championed were in harm's way. Keeping them in his thoughts, he closed the doors of the annual Salon des Indépendants for the duration of the war.
The few paintings that Signac completed during the later years of the war must have been a balm for his troubled spirit. They depict familiar sites along the Côte d'Azur in Antibes, Saint-Tropez and Cannes. Only one painting alludes to the war: Le nuage rose, 1916, in which a squadron of torpedo boats skirts the horizon, while a solitary fishing boat--perhaps emblematic of the artist himself--sails by in the foreground. A huge, ominous reddish cloud towers like a massive explosion in the distance (Cachin, no. 509; fig. 1).
In Les Allées, Cannes, Signac has framed two sides of the painting with the twisting, dance-like arabesque of an old seaside pine tree. The present composition is reminiscent of several Signac painted in 1917 that treat a similar view of Antibes, seen in varying opalescent tonalities of late afternoon light (fig. 2). These works show Signac in the middle phase of his career employing a freer, more purposely expressive but no less subtle development of his divisionist technique. Les Allées, Cannes belongs properly to this reflective moment. Though dated 1920 by the artist, Les Allées, Cannes was included in 1918 in the chronology for the major Signac retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2001; the curators cite a letter from Signac to Félix Fénéon confirming Signac had this work in hand when he saw Matisse and Marquet in Antibes in April of 1918 and sold the painting to Léon Marseille later that same month. Having situated himself on the beach east of the town, the painter looked at the same horizon daily and painted it from various vantage points--some views fixated on the ships at sail framed, as here, by the magnificent gnarled trees, and others focused on the port and lighthouses in the vicinity.
This painting may be enjoyed for its purely scenic qualities, its ripe, iridescent colors and tranquil sea. Given Signac's serious state-of-mind during this time, however, there is another, more significant dimension as well. In these pictures Signac created the haven of a separate peace, far removed from mechanized carnage which the European powers had so grievously inflicted upon one another, and here he dreams that the age-old Mediterranean culture and way of life, so profoundly harmonized with nature and the sea, will endure and outlast the barbarism of war.
(fig. 1) Paul Signac, Le nuage rose (Antibes), 1916. The Isabelle and Scott Black Collection. BARCODE 27237496
(fig. 2) Paul Signac, Antibes, petit port de Bacon, 1917. Sold, Christie's, Paris, 21 May 2008, lot 55. Barcode: 27249413