Seine near Saint-Cloud

Seine near Saint-Cloud (1900) shows Signac applying his fully matured divisionist mosaic technique to the western suburbs of Paris, near the forested bluff of Saint-Cloud above the Seine. Saint-Cloud's parkland and river views had attracted French painters since the seventeenth century. By 1900 Signac was alternating between his Mediterranean base at Saint-Tropez and Parisian and northern French painting campaigns, maintaining his commitment to the Seine as a subject. Museum Folkwang, Essen.

The river's reflective surface and wooded banks are built in Signac's evolved mosaic technique of larger colour patches, the greens and blues more broadly stated than in his fine-dot early works. Strong verticals of reflected trees contrast with the horizontal water surface below.