Barfleur, 1931

Barfleur, the small Norman port on the Cotentin peninsula, represents Signac's late engagement with the Channel coast during the final phase of his career in the 1920s and 1930s. By 1931, Signac's technique had evolved from the systematic divisionist dots of his theoretically rigorous 1880s and 1890s work toward a somewhat freer, more painterly application, though he maintained his commitment to color analysis and optical mixture. The Norman fishing villages and harbors he visited in this period gave him subjects with a different atmospheric quality than the Mediterranean — greyer, more weather-dependent, with the characteristic silver light of the northern coast.

Signac's later divisionist stroke — larger, more mosaic-like, and less mechanically regular than his early pointillist work — builds the harbor scene from broader color patches that maintain optical mixture without the systematic rigidity of his theoretical period. Cool greys and blue-violets dominate against the warm ochre and sienna of stone buildings.