PAUL SIGNAC (1863-1935
Cap Canaille (394 m -1292, 65 ft)
France
The mountain
Cap Canaille (394m) is a cape in France located in the the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region with a culminating point called " La Grande Tête" (The great Head). It is located in the city of Cassis, north-west of La Ciotat. Its red rock is composed of detritic limestones. Going into the Mediterranean Sea, it consists of rocky and steep banks dominated by the western extremity of the Soubeyranes cliffs. The latter are, after the Slieve League in Ireland, one of the highest maritime cliffs in Europe and constitute, in La Ciotat, the highest cliffs in France with a maximum altitude of 394 meters. A road, the D141 called "Route des Crêtes", connects Cassis to La Ciotat by approaching the edge of the cliff. Several gazebos are set up there with a spectacular view on the French Riviera and the sea. Cap Canaille is well known for having inspired a lot of painters of the end of 19th century and beginning of 20th. Its name is due to a distortion of the Provençal langage Cap Naio "Cap Naille" in French, meaning "Swimming mountain " or a distorsion of the roman latin name Mons Canalis meaning " Mountain of Aqueducts".
The painter
Paul Victor Jules Signac was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style. In 1884 he met Claude Monet and Georges Seurat. He was struck by the systematic working methods of Seurat and by his theory of colors and became Seurat's faithful supporter, friend and heir with his description of Neo-Impressionism and Divisionism method. Under Seurat's influence he abandoned the short brushstrokes of Impressionism to experiment with scientifically juxtaposed small dots of pure color, intended to combine and blend not on the canvas but in the viewer's eye, the defining feature of Pointillism. Many of Signac's paintings are of the French coast. He loved to paint the water. He left the capital each summer, to stay in the south of France in the village of Collioure or at St. Tropez, where he bought a house and invited his friends.
Paul Signac, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon and Georges Seurat were among the founders of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. The association began in Paris 29 July 1884 with the organization of massive exhibitions, with the device "No jury nor awards". "The purpose of Société des Artistes Indépendants—based on the principle of abolishing admission jury—is to allow the artists to present their works to public judgement with complete freedom". For the following three decades their annual exhibitions set the trends in art of the early 20th century.
Signac himself experimented with various media. As well as oil paintings and watercolors he made etchings, lithographs, and many pen-and-ink sketches composed of small, laborious dots. The Neo-Impressionists influenced the next generation: Signac inspired Henri Matisse and André Derain in particular, thus playing a decisive role in the evolution of Fauvism.
As president of the Société des Artistes Indépendants from 1908 until his death, Signac encouraged younger artists (he was the first to buy a painting by Matisse) by exhibiting the controversial works of the Fauves and the Cubists.
