Bridge to the Isle Saint Louis, Paris

After 1900, Signac gave up the small, rigorously applied dots of Pointillism and began to apply his paint in looser, square-shaped strokes.  This watercolor drawing, Bridge to the Isle St. Louis, Paris, illustrates this later style with its square patches of color. The subject is also characteristic of Signac’s later period, when he painted numerous harbor and water scenes. In 1923, his sixtieth year, the bridges of Paris became a particular focus of his sketches. Here Signac depicts the bridge leading to the Ile St. Louis, an island in the Seine very close to Notre Dame Cathedral. Architectural features of the bridge, such as the stone niches, receive careful delineation even as the trees overhanging the bridge dissolve into fluid masses of color. Signac’s lively, light-filled watercolors are generally counted among his finest work; the mysterious object in the foreground of this one adds an extra touch of whimsy.