The Harbour Entrance, St.Tropez

The Harbour Entrance, Saint-Tropez (1902) is a later view of the village's harbour mouth, painted a decade after Signac first settled there. By 1902 he had moved towards a somewhat looser, more painterly divisionist technique, with larger mosaic strokes replacing the fine early dots. The harbour entrance — with its lighthouse, stone jetty, and open sea beyond — was a recurrent compositional motif offering a gateway between the enclosed harbour and the infinite Mediterranean. Rosengart Collection, Lucerne.

The harbour entrance's stone structures are rendered in warm ochre and rose against the contrasting deep blue of the open sea beyond. The transition from enclosed harbour to open water is emphasised through a shift from warmer to cooler chromatic zones, orchestrated through Signac's mosaic technique.