Women by the Well III

Women by the Well III is the third in Signac's series treating this subject, which he developed across multiple canvases in the late 1880s and 1890s as part of his effort to apply divisionist theory systematically to figure composition. The series as a whole shows him working through variations in figure arrangement, viewing distance, and compositional format while maintaining the same subject — an approach to series painting that reflects the influence of Seurat's figures at Asnières and the Grande Jatte. The third version likely represents the most resolved compositional solution after the experiments of versions I and II.

The divisionist treatment of the figures' skin and drapery in this version reflects the accumulated knowledge of the earlier canvases — the color intervals between sunlit flesh and shadow flesh more precisely calibrated, the transition from figure to background more fluidly handled. The well's stone and the surrounding landscape provide the warm earthy complement to the figures' cooler tones.