Le Soir - Jetée de Flessingue. Evening - The Jetty at Flessingue. by Paul Signac, 1863-1935

Paul Signac, 1863-1935
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Le Soir - Jetée de Flessingue. Evening - The Jetty at Flessingue.

Original lithograph in five colours. 1898. From the issued edition. Commissioned and published by Meier Graefe for the album 'Pan', Berlin 1898. Drawn and edition printed at the
studio of Auguste Clot, Paris 1897/8.
Ref: Kornfeld and Wick - Paul Signac Prints no 20

Exceptionally fine bright unfaded impression. On light off-white chine volant paper; with the publication line lower left, as issued. Extremely fine condition. Full margins. Sheet: 10 7/8 x 14 1/2ins (277x368mm). Image: 8 x 10 3/8 ins (200x260mm).

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Signac's composition of 'Le Soir' is a beautiful illustration of the luminosity of colour which he created in his pointillist lithographs, each of the five colours, blue, pale blue, yellow, green and pink-red, expressed in a pattern of dot-strokes and brought together through the overprinting of one lithographic stone on the next.

'Evening, Jetty at Flessingue - Le Soir' is one of just 10 colour lithographs in the pointillist style which exist, eight of them drawn by Signac and two by Henri Edmond Cross. It is tragic that difficulty in selling prints at the time when Signac was working discouraged him from drawing more images, for they are amongst the most beautiful and evocative colour lithographs of the 1890's and a wonderful expression of the Pointillist aesthetic.

The concept of Divisionism, Pointillism or Neo-Impressionism, as it was variously called, was really founded by Seurat and Signac in 1884 at the Salon des Indépendants. They were seeking ways to achieve a greater purity and luminosity of colour than could be found through mixing pigments. The idea of placing dots of pure colour side by side was developed from the colour theories of the scientist Chevreul as expounded in 'De la Loi Simultané des Couleurs'. Signac, Seurat and Cross took up his ideas, and realising how contrast creates luminosity, began to use dots of pigment colour placed side by side rather than overpainted or mixed. Signac (and Cross) then applied the same idea to the use of dots of colour in lithography, exploiting the fact that each colour is printed separately. As in the paintings the juxtaposition created a special quality of visual colour effect and light.