The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely, 1886. Paul Signac. Oil on canvas. Purchase: acquired through the generosity of an anonymous donor.
This sunlit landscape is constructed by juxtaposing small brushstrokes of vibrant colors in varying sizes. Unlike Georges Seurat’s Pointillist technique of using small dots of paint to compose a scene, Paul Signac separated color through individual brushstrokes of pigment. This technique came to be called Divisionism.
The meticulous separation of colors Signac used here relates to a scientific theory of the time called “optical mixture.” This principle held that colored light from the dabs of paint blended in the viewer’s eye, resulting in a shimmering light effect.
