Portrieux, The jetty, grey weather

Portrieux — now known as Saint-Quay-Portrieux — is a small Breton fishing harbour that Signac painted on multiple occasions in the late 1880s. This grey-weather view from 1888 applies his divisionist method to overcast atmospheric conditions, testing whether the colour-opposition system performed equally well in the absence of strong sunlight. The jetty provides firm compositional structure against which sea and sky can be measured. Grey weather in northern France presented Neo-Impressionist painters with a genuine theoretical challenge that Signac engaged throughout his Breton work.

The grey overcast is rendered through desaturated, cooler versions of Signac's standard divisionist palette. Rather than the vivid complementary contrasts of his sunny Mediterranean work, the dots here occupy a narrower range of grey-blues and pale greens.