Vaison 1933

Paul Signac made this watercolour and ink drawing of Vaison using a light touch and a real sense of freedom. Signac’s marks are more like notations than descriptions, and that gives the image a provisional, searching quality. See the wispy lines that describe the clouds, or the scribbled hatching that models the bell tower – it's as if he's thinking out loud. The washes of colour are so fluid and transparent, and yet they hold their own against the strong black ink. Look how the green bleeds into the ochre of the buildings, blurring the edges and creating a kind of humid atmosphere. The whole thing feels very immediate. Signac was working at the same time as Matisse and Derain, artists also working in the South of France, who were thinking about how colour could be used expressively, rather than representationally, and how a painting could be a record of a particular process, as well as a depiction of a particular place. Signac’s Vaison feels like an invitation to think about looking and seeing, as a kind of art in itself.