Paul Signac

Admiration for the Venetian work of J.M.W. Turner prompted the Neo-Impressionist painter Paul Signac to visit Venice often during the final decades of his career. Unlike the energetic and painterly swirls of Turner’s watercolors, Signac depicted sailboats, steeples, and sky with a carefully controlled approach to color. Following the rules of divisionism (also known as pointillism), he worked in discrete dots or patches of color, which the viewer’s eyes must blend and combine. Like Sargent and Whistler, Signac enjoyed painting outdoors from a gondola, producing small watercolors like this view of the rear of the church and bell tower of San Giorgio Maggiore, with the city further across the lagoon on the horizon. He called these watercolors “notations,” using them as inspiration for large works on canvas.