Port of La Rochelle

Signac returned to La Rochelle repeatedly across his career, and this 1915 canvas in the Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy was painted during the First World War — a period when his movements and painting activity were constrained by wartime conditions. La Rochelle was a major Atlantic port and retained strategic importance during the conflict, giving harbour views a different resonance than in peacetime. His continued production of harbour paintings through these years reflects commitment to a practice that the war could interrupt but not extinguish.

The harbour's defensive towers frame the entrance in a compositional device Signac used consistently across his La Rochelle series. His 1915 divisionist application is looser and more gestural than early work, individual strokes larger and less uniformly shaped.