The Bridge of Arts

This view of Paris crossed into Germany in 1914, the year the two countries went to war. The Kunstmuseum in Essen bought it that year from the Paris gallery Bernheim-Jeune, and in 1922 it passed to the Museum Folkwang, the collection Essen had just bought and brought over from Hagen. Signac painted it over 1912 and 1913, when he kept returning to this stretch of the Seine. He stood on the right bank and looked across at the Île de la Cité, lined up almost like an old city view. You can pick out the Palais de Justice, the slim spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, the two towers of Notre-Dame and the arches of the Pont Neuf, all behind the iron bridge of the Pont des Arts. By this time his dots had grown into short, blocky strokes set side by side, mostly blues and greens broken up with touches of yellow and dark red.