Evening Calm, Concarneau, Opus 220 (Allegro Maestoso)

Painted in 1891 and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this work depicting Concarneau harbour in Brittany at evening carries a musical opus designation — Allegro Maestoso — reflecting Signac's ambition to synthesise painting and music within a Symbolist aesthetic. Concarneau, a walled fishing town on the southern Breton coast, was a destination for several Post-Impressionist painters seeking Atlantic coastal light as a counterpoint to the Mediterranean. The calm evening hour offered Signac an extended range of twilight complementaries — deep blues and warm oranges — to display in systematic juxtaposition.

The evening palette exploits deep blue-violet water and sky contrasted against warm orange and gold accents on the town and rigging. Signac's systematic dots here take on a meditative evenness appropriate to the 'calm' of the title, with the reflections in still water providing a secondary plane of horizontal colour.