Le Cap Griz-Nez

Le Cap Griz-Nez by Théo van Rysselberghe from 1900, held in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, depicts the famous chalk headland on the Pas-de-Calais coast — the closest point of France to England — using the Neo-Impressionist pointillist technique with which Van Rysselberghe was closely identified. As a founding member of Les Vingt and the foremost Belgian Neo-Impressionist, Van Rysselberghe had painted numerous coastal subjects applying Seurat's divisionist method to the particular light of the English Channel. Cap Gris-Nez, with its dramatic cliffs and open sea horizon, was an ideal subject for demonstrating how divisionism could render the shimmer and vibration of light on water and rock.

Van Rysselberghe applies small, systematic dots of color in the divisionist manner, building the cliff face and sea surface from separate chromatic touches that fuse optically at viewing distance. His handling of the horizon — the precise line between sea and sky — demonstrates divisionism's particular strength in rendering atmospheric transitions.