Saint-Tropez, the Pier

Signac moved his base of operations to Saint-Tropez in 1892, and the town's harbor, jetty, and fishing fleet became his primary subjects for the following decade. This pier view belongs to the body of divisionist harbor paintings that established his reputation after his initial theoretical partnership with Seurat — who died in 1891 — left him as the principal spokesman and practitioner of Pointillism. The Saint-Tropez works were widely exhibited through Signac's neo-Impressionist network and influenced younger painters including Matisse, who visited Saint-Tropez at Signac's invitation in 1904 and whose Fauvist color would emerge partly from that encounter.

Signac applies his characteristic divisionist dot — somewhat larger and more square-like than Seurat's tiny point — in a systematic mosaic across the canvas surface. The harbor scene is analyzed into its component colored lights: warm orange and yellow in the sunlit pier, cool blue and violet in the shadows, and complex complementary mixtures in the water reflections.