Portrieux, the swell

On 24 August 1888, halfway through a summer at Portrieux on the north coast of Brittany, Signac wrote to the older painter Camille Pissarro that he had eight canvases started and not a single one finished. He had sailed there in July on one of his own boats and stayed until late September, and he seems to have worked on his harbour views side by side rather than one after another. His opus number for this one, 190, is painted in the lower right corner. The French title is La Houle, the swell, and the swell really is the subject. Long, even bands of darker blue roll across the whole lower half of the canvas, each one built up from small separate dots. At the left edge, a stone jetty with a tricolour flag and a leaning triangle of timbers throws its reflection straight down into the water.