Antibes, Thunderstorm

Across 1918 and 1919, as the war ended and the peace began, Signac painted a whole series of views of Antibes, and this is one of the smaller ones. The town is seen from a boat, a long way out on the water, its two old towers standing pale against the hill behind. The subject is a thunderstorm, and greys dominate the picture. Even so, it never turns gloomy. He brushed those greys on thinly, over canvas he had left unprimed, so the weather feels light and on the move rather than threatening. Eight years earlier he had painted the same towers from much closer in, on a larger canvas that now belongs to the same collection in Vienna. He signed and dated this one at lower left, and when a magazine reproduced it in 1932, it appeared under the wrong title, as Saint-Tropez.