Port-en-Bessin

In March 1883 the dealer Durand-Ruel put on a Monet show in Paris that included the cliffs and beaches of Pourville and Varengeville. Signac was 19, had almost no formal training, and had been going to the small Norman harbour of Port-en-Bessin every summer since 1882 because he liked to sail. What he brought back that year is Monet's coast done by someone still learning the trick, long ribbons of brushwork for water and headland, with the pale beach left as the brightest thing in the picture. The dots and the colour theory were three years off and he had not yet met Seurat. The canvas is wide and low, about 129 centimetres across, built for the horizon rather than for the harbour.