Au temps d'harmonie

Au Temps d'Harmonie (In the Age of Harmony, 1893-95) is Signac's most ambitious canvas and his fullest expression of the anarchist utopian vision that underpinned his commitment to neo-Impressionism. The large canvas (300 x 400 cm, now in the Mairie de Montreuil) depicts a Mediterranean coastal landscape populated by men and women at leisure — working, reading, swimming, playing with children — in an imagined future society liberated from want and hierarchy. The title quotes the anarchist theorist Élisée Reclus, and the original subtitle ('Le golden age n'est pas dans le passé, il est dans l'avenir') was displayed prominently. Signac worked on the composition for two years.

At over three meters wide, the canvas demanded a systematic working method: Signac organized the composition through careful studies before executing the finished surface in his standard divisionist dot, applied consistently across figures, landscape, and water in a surface of remarkable overall unity. The palette is warm and saturated — Mediterranean yellows, blues, and greens in full sunlight — radiating the optimism of the utopian subject.