Vue de Saint-Tropez, coucher de soleil au bois de pins

This 1896 view of Saint-Tropez at sunset through parasol pines belongs to Signac's Saint-Tropez period — he discovered the fishing village in 1892 and made it his summer base and principal landscape subject. The sunset through pine trees is a characteristically rich compositional subject for his Pointillist method: the warm pinks and oranges of the sky filtering through dark foliage create exactly the kind of complementary color interaction his theory celebrated. Signac was the primary theorist and advocate of Neo-Impressionism after Seurat's death, and his Saint-Tropez canvases are the most sustained application of the Pointillist method to Mediterranean landscape.

The sunset palette — warm oranges, pinks, and violets — is applied in Signac's characteristic mosaïque of distinct, separate color strokes. The dark pine silhouettes create strong value contrast against the luminous sky. His mosaic technique gives the scene a vibratory, jewel-like quality very different from traditional atmospheric sunset painting.