Les Diablerets 1903

Paul Signac made Les Diablerets, a landscape painting, with oil paint and a pointillist technique. The process is pretty clear from the start. Each tiny dab of color feels like a little decision, a building block, a unit of thought. Look at how the peaks of the mountains are rendered in pale pinks and blues, built up from individual brushstrokes, almost like pixels. It's like Signac is building the mountain right in front of us, one dot at a time. There's a sense of air and light created by the juxtaposition of complementary colors, a vibrating energy that keeps your eye moving. The strokes of paint are rhythmically applied in short marks, which feels both controlled and kind of wild. Like a tightly-wound spring about to burst. Signac's work reminds me a bit of Van Gogh’s, in the way that he uses brushstrokes to create movement and emotion. Art is always a conversation, one artist speaking to another across time.