작품 217번. 박자와 각도, 색조와 색채로 율동을 이룬 배경의 에나멜 위에, 1890년 펠릭스 페네옹 씨의 초상

Felix Feneon was the critic who, in 1886, coined the word Neo-Impressionism to describe what Signac and Seurat were doing with their tiny dots of pure colour, and Signac painted this as a thank-you. Feneon stands in crisp profile holding a flower, his pointed goatee echoed by the swirl behind him. That kaleidoscopic background was lifted from a Japanese woodblock print in Signac's own collection, then pushed toward the period's fascination with charts linking colour to emotion. The absurdly long title, with its talk of beats, angles, tones and tints, is half a joke and half a serious claim that painting could be built on system. Feneon was also a committed anarchist who, four years later, would stand trial after a bombing. The Rockefellers gave the portrait to the Museum of Modern Art in 1991.