Francis Picabia was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism. His highly abstract planar compositions were colourful and rich in contrasts. He was one of the early major figures of the Dada movement in the United States and in France. He was later briefly associated with Surrealism, but would soon turn his back on the art establishment.
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image.
Paul Victor Jules Signac was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style.
The French Riviera is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend from Toulon, Le Lavandou or Saint-Tropez in the west to Menton at the France–Italy border in the east. The coast is entirely within the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. The Principality of Monaco is a semi-enclave within the region, surrounded on three sides by France and fronting the Mediterranean. Riviera is an Italian word that corresponds to the ancient Ligurian territory, wedged between the Var and Magra rivers. The Côte d'Azur or French Riviera, is a nickname given by France to the County of Nice after its annexation in 1860, because the rain and the Mistral were stopped by the Alps and the climate was similar to that of the north of Italy, even in winter, with a sky as blue as its sea. When the Mistral and the Tramontane are blowing, this provokes an upwelling phenomenon between Languedoc and Provence: they push the surface waters out to sea and bring deeper, cooler waters up to the seaside. Consequently, on these beaches, the temperature of the Mediterranean can be very cool in summer depending on the wind regime. This phenomenon is observed very little or not on the coast between the French Riviera and the Italian Riviera. After the 2000s it was extended to the rest of Southern France, although the geography, culture or climate is different. The County of Nice is a mountainous area like Italy which stands out from the South of France. While the Saharan warm wind Sirocco blows over Italy, the cold wind Mistral blows over the south of France. As the County of Nice is protected by the Alps, it has a northern Italian climate. This corresponds to the mountain range of the Apennines and Ligurian Alps and located between the rivers of Var and Magra.
Henri-Edmond Cross, born Henri-Edmond-Joseph Delacroix, was a French painter and printmaker. He is most acclaimed as a master of Neo-Impressionism and he played an important role in shaping the second phase of that movement. He was a significant influence on Henri Matisse and many other artists. His work was instrumental in the development of Fauvism.
Orphism or Orphic Cubism, a term coined by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire in 1912, was an offshoot of Cubism that focused on pure abstraction and bright colors, influenced by Fauvism, the theoretical writings of Paul Signac, Charles Henry and the dye chemist Eugène Chevreul. This movement, perceived as key in the transition from Cubism to Abstract art, was pioneered by František Kupka, Robert Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay, who relaunched the use of color during the monochromatic phase of Cubism. The meaning of the term Orphism was elusive when it first appeared and remains to some extent vague.
Neo-Impressionism is a term coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat's most renowned masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, marked the beginning of this movement when it first made its appearance at an exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris. Around this time, the peak of France's modern era emerged and many painters were in search of new methods. Followers of Neo-Impressionism, in particular, were drawn to modern urban scenes as well as landscapes and seashores. Science-based interpretation of lines and colors influenced Neo-Impressionists' characterization of their own contemporary art. The Pointillist and Divisionist techniques are often mentioned in this context, because they were the dominant techniques in the beginning of the Neo-impressionist movement.
Charles Angrand was a French artist who gained renown for his Neo-Impressionist paintings and drawings. He was an important member of the Parisian avant-garde art scene in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
Divisionism, also called chromoluminarism, was the characteristic style in Neo-Impressionist painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically.
Jean Hippolyte Marchand was a French cubist painter, printmaker and illustrator with an association with figures of the Bloomsbury Group.
Félix Fénéon was a French art critic, gallery director, writer and anarchist during the late 19th century and early 20th century. He coined the term Neo-Impressionism in 1886 to identify a group of artists led by Georges Seurat, and ardently promoted them.
Luxe, Calme et Volupté is an oil painting by the French artist Henri Matisse. Both foundational in the oeuvre of Matisse and a pivotal work in the history of art, Luxe, Calme et Volupté is considered the starting point of Fauvism. This painting is a dynamic and vibrant work created early on in his career as a painter. It displays an evolution of the Neo-Impressionist style mixed with a new conceptual meaning based in fantasy and leisure that had not been seen in works before.
Louis Valtat was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Fauves, who first exhibited together in 1905 at the Salon d'Automne. He is noted as a key figure in the stylistic transition in painting from Monet to Matisse.
A Woman Walking in a Garden was painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1887. As the title indicates, it depicts a woman walking through a garden. Greenery is everywhere and numerous trees can be seen in the background.
The Musée Cantini is a museum in Marseilles that has been open to the public since 1936. The museum specializes in modern art, especially paintings from the first half of the twentieth century.
The Lagoon of Saint Mark, Venice is an oil on canvas painting by Paul Signac. This painting focuses on a seascape image which became a common theme late in Signac's life.
Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange (1877–1958) was a French neo-impressionist painter who used the art technique of pointillism with her main themes of flowers and gardens. Her painting, Garden at La Lune, Saint-Tropez (1909), shows her signature use of “high-key colors and block-like strokes.”
Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890 is an 1890 oil painting by French artist Paul Signac. The Neo-impressionist work depicts the French art critic Félix Fénéon standing in front of a swirling coloured background. It has been held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1991.
Le Sentier des douanes is a Pointillist-divisionist oil on canvas painting by Paul Signac, measuring 72 by 92.5 cm. It shows the 'Sentier des Douanes', a seaside path in Saint-Tropez. The work now hangs in the musée de Grenoble, to which it was left in 1923 by Georgette Agutte and Marcel Sembat.
Capo di Noli is an oil on canvas painting of 1898 by the French artist Paul Signac. It depicts a cape on the Italian Riviera, close to Genoa. Signac hiked there from Saint-Tropez two years before the painting was completed, and of his intentions he wrote he "wanted to take every corner of the canvas to the absolute extreme in terms of colour."
