Gouverlo, Portrieux

Gouverlo, Portrieux (1888) was painted at Saint-Quay-Portrieux on the Brittany coast, one of several locations Signac visited in the late 1880s in his regular summer painting campaigns along the French Atlantic coast. By 1888 Signac had fully committed to systematic divisionism in the wake of the 1886 Impressionist exhibition, and these Breton coastal paintings represent his mature early style. The rocky Breton coastline, with its forceful waves and grey stone, offered different chromatic challenges from his later Mediterranean subjects. Hiroshima Museum of Art.

Rocky coastal forms are built from systematic dots of cool grey and blue, with warm ochre and orange in the lit surfaces. The dynamic Breton swell introduces more turbulent diagonal movement than Signac's typically calm harbour compositions. The dot-work is fine and consistent, demonstrating full command of systematic technique.