As the days get shorter in the Northern Hemisphere my contrarian thoughts turn to light. Luminance is the term for perceived lightness, defined by scientists as the amount of light that comes from or is reflected off a flat surface (like a painting). Color and light are processed by different parts of the eye/brain, and only in primates apparently.
In Places des Lices. Saint-Tropez, Paul Signac gives a bravura demonstration of how luminance works and also why painting with dots - pointillism - does as well, even though the science behind that theory has been superceded by photometry. Each area of light within the picture is composed of dabs of several different colors but, because each dab has equivalent luminance, the colors blend in a pleasing manner.
There are other things in Signac's painting that are not immediately visible. The man sitting on the bench has the perfect day to himself. Being human ourselves, we notice him first but although he has the scene to himself he is not the subject. The trees have been (de)formed by the winds that blow off the Mediterranean, something that Signac, an amateur sailor, was particularly attuned.to. As he sailed around the Mediterranean, he might possibly have read Afloat, a lyrical travelogue written by Guy de Maupassant and published in 1888. In any case, both artist and writer made a point of visiting as many ports as possible.
Afloat has recently been translated from the French by Douglas Parmee and published in the U.S. by New York Review Books.
Image: Paul Signac - Place des Lices. Saint-Tropez, 1893, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
7 comments:
Hello, Jane,
Of course, Signac based himself and his yacht in St. Tropez and it was thanks to him that so many artists came to the place. It's quite unusual to see the solitary figure apparently enjoying the peace and quiet of the Place des Lices - it's usually full of locals playing boules. In spite of the tacky commercialisation of the sea front area, when you walk back a couple of streets from there, St. Tropez still seems like a small Provencal town. It must have been really idyllic when Signac, Matisse ans so many others first "discovered" it.
Regards,
Andy McEwan.
So beautiful, and this blog is so full of light. I stop over here to get a little bit of light as the days grow darker.
Andy, one small thing that charms me in this picture is the way that the man's legs appear to curve in harmony with the trees. I imagine he might have experienced a feeling of oneness with that beautiful day. His Saint-Tropez must have been very different from the tourist destination it has become.
Nin, I'm so happy that you find something of interest here. Thank you.
I find it so interesting how the trees curve and lean toward the light. I have not seen this painting and enjoyed the information and painting both. Thanks you.
Had to google photometry - interesting if a bit too scientific for me, and I guess most painters who may grab a bit of contemporary science to support what they want to do anyway. This is a lovely painting, and as others have suggested the way the human figure is absorbed into the surroundings is part of the success of the composition. In some ways that composition is a bit ordinary, with the church spire right in the centre, but it works because of the precise placing of the solitary man against the arcade of trees - which make the man seem like a tree, but more importantly makes the trees seem semi-human. Signac is a much underrated artist.
This may make hash of the "objective correlative" but I think Signac's painting allows the viewer to experience something of what the man on the bench experienced. In this instance, the background really is the background.
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