As Ilhas de Ouro

In 1891 Henri-Edmond Cross packed up and left Paris for the little coast at Saint-Clair, in the Var, close to his friend Paul Signac. He had just committed to the dotted technique the Neo-Impressionists were working out, and the move to the Mediterranean gave him a subject he could push almost to the edge of nothing. The Golden Isles here are the Iles d'Hyeres, seen across the water, but Cross has stripped away nearly everything you would call scenery. The canvas settles into a few horizontal bands of colour for beach, sea and sky. Look closely at the dots and you will see them start large as pebbles along the shore, then shrink as the water runs out toward the islands.