Constantinople, New Mosque

Constantinople, New Mosque (1909) was painted during Signac's legendary 1907 trip to Constantinople (Istanbul), where he made a series of watercolours and oils of the Bosphorus, mosques, and harbour. The Yeni Cami (New Mosque) by the Golden Horn was one of his central subjects, its massive dome and minarets rising from the waterfront providing an architectural spectacle that thrilled him. Signac's travels to exotic locations — Venice, Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Constantinople — extended his divisionist method into subjects of Islamic architecture and Middle Eastern light. Wallraf-Richartz Museum.

The mosque's dome and minarets are rendered in warm stone tones built from mosaic patches of ochre and pink, with the surrounding sky and water in deep contrasting blues. The horizontal Bosphorus provides a reflective field that mirrors the architectural forms in cooler divisionist passages.