Gasometers at Clichy

Painted in 1886 and now at the National Gallery of Victoria, this view of the gasometers at Clichy is among Signac's most programmatic statements of Neo-Impressionist urban-industrial subject matter. Clichy, an industrial suburb northwest of Paris on the Seine, hosted gas storage facilities that formed part of the modern city's infrastructure — deliberately unglamorous subjects that the Neo-Impressionists embraced in contrast to Impressionist leisure scenes. Signac and Seurat both painted industrial and suburban Paris to assert that their scientific method could encompass the full range of modern life, not merely the picturesque.

The cylindrical gasometer towers are built from geometric clusters of warm and cool dots that describe their curving surfaces with more formal rigour than Impressionist brushwork would allow. Industrial greys and blues dominate the palette, with scattered orange and ochre accents marking warm surfaces against the cool overcast sky.