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Lot Essay
In Les Andelys. Matin. Eté, Paul Signac has perfectly captured the haze and play of light on the river at this spot, a village near Rouen. The more intense greens of the trees on either side of this landscape emphasise the deliberately muted light of the haze-filled landscape as the river stretches into the distance, the view mirrored in its surface.
Les Andelys. Matin. Eté was painted in 1923. Signac spent a large portion of that year staying at Le Petit-Andely, driving about, 'on board my nice little 6HP Renault,' finally returning to Paris in November (Signac, quoted in F. Cachin, op. cit., p. 318). During that stay, he completed two oils, of which this is one. This painting reveals not only his legendary love of water, which he adored both as a dedicated sailor and because of the rich opportunities it provided him as an artist, but also his prediliction for Les Andelys as a location. It was here, almost four decades earlier, that Signac had painted some of his first Neo-Impressionist pictures. He was thus returning to one of the cradles of that movement, and this is echoed in his treatment of the view. However, a key difference between those pictures painted in 1886 and the present work is evident in the freer treatment of the paint. While in the formative years of his Neo-Impressionism, Signac had been intensely devoted to the theories that lay behind the Pointillisme of which he was such a master. Following the death of his fellow pioneer Georges Seurat, he had allowed the joy of painting to come increasingly to the fore, creating radiant works such as Les Andelys. Matin. Eté.
Soon after Les Andelys. Matin. Eté was completed, it was sold to the eminent poet Charles Vildrac; it was later in the collection of Gaston Lévy, the founder of the Monoprix chain of supermarkets. Lévy was one of Signac's most passionate collectors, accumulating a dazzling array of works by the artist and even commissioning the famous project 'Les ports de France', the very ambitious portrayl in watercolour of the hundred most important harbours of France, which became Signac's passionate endeavour in the final decades of his life.
Les Andelys. Matin. Eté was painted in 1923. Signac spent a large portion of that year staying at Le Petit-Andely, driving about, 'on board my nice little 6HP Renault,' finally returning to Paris in November (Signac, quoted in F. Cachin, op. cit., p. 318). During that stay, he completed two oils, of which this is one. This painting reveals not only his legendary love of water, which he adored both as a dedicated sailor and because of the rich opportunities it provided him as an artist, but also his prediliction for Les Andelys as a location. It was here, almost four decades earlier, that Signac had painted some of his first Neo-Impressionist pictures. He was thus returning to one of the cradles of that movement, and this is echoed in his treatment of the view. However, a key difference between those pictures painted in 1886 and the present work is evident in the freer treatment of the paint. While in the formative years of his Neo-Impressionism, Signac had been intensely devoted to the theories that lay behind the Pointillisme of which he was such a master. Following the death of his fellow pioneer Georges Seurat, he had allowed the joy of painting to come increasingly to the fore, creating radiant works such as Les Andelys. Matin. Eté.
Soon after Les Andelys. Matin. Eté was completed, it was sold to the eminent poet Charles Vildrac; it was later in the collection of Gaston Lévy, the founder of the Monoprix chain of supermarkets. Lévy was one of Signac's most passionate collectors, accumulating a dazzling array of works by the artist and even commissioning the famous project 'Les ports de France', the very ambitious portrayl in watercolour of the hundred most important harbours of France, which became Signac's passionate endeavour in the final decades of his life.