Afternoon in Pardigon

Afternoon in Pardigon, painted in 1907 and now at the Musée d'Orsay, was produced near the end of Cross's life — he died in 1910 — and documents the late phase of his Divisionist technique in the Var coastal landscape that had been his home for over fifteen years. Pardigon is a coastal site near Cavalaire-sur-Mer in the Var département, a small bay typical of the Côte d'Azur's pre-development Mediterranean landscape. By 1907 Cross's brushstroke had loosened considerably from the disciplined Pointillism he had practiced in the early 1890s; his late technique used broad, mosaic-like strokes of intense unmixed color that anticipated aspects of Fauvism, which was transforming French painting from around 1905. Cross's close friend Henri Matisse acknowledged the importance of Cross's and Signac's Divisionist technique for the development of Fauvism's radical color. The Orsay's holding of this late work positions it within the canonical collection of French Post-Impressionism.

The late Divisionist technique employs broad strokes of intense unmixed color arranged in mosaic patterns that push the method toward an expressionistic intensity. The Mediterranean palette — cobalt blue, emerald green, intense yellow, warm ochre — is applied with maximum chromatic contrast.