Castellane

Castellane (1902) shows Signac venturing into the Provençal hinterland to paint the dramatic landscape around the mountain town of Castellane in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, with its famous rock citadel above the Verdon river. While best known for his maritime subjects, Signac also painted inland landscapes, and the ochre limestone cliffs of upper Provence provided a warm, geologically dramatic subject for his divisionist colour experiments. By 1902 he was the acknowledged head of the Neo-Impressionist movement.

The dramatic geological forms of the Provençal limestone are rendered in warm ochre, gold, and orange mosaic patches, their mass contrasted with the vivid blue of the sky above. The technique here applies divisionist colour to a more three-dimensionally complex subject than his typical flat harbour compositions.