Venedig, der Canal Grande

Signac came to Venice in 1904 and painted the mouth of the Grand Canal, with the great domed church of Santa Maria della Salute on the left and gondolas moored along the right. He worked in the method he and Georges Seurat had built on colour science: separate touches of pure paint set side by side so the eye mixes them into light. But by now Signac had given up Seurat's tiny dots for broader blocks that sit on the canvas like the tiles of a mosaic, and that was no accident in Venice, a city whose old churches glitter with Byzantine mosaic. He usually finished canvases like this back in his studio, working up watercolours and drawings he had made in front of the water.