The Junction at Bois-Colombes de Paul Signac

This suburban landscape by Paul Signac, entitled “The Junction at Bois-Colombes”, illustrates his constant interest in industrial landscapes and peri-urban areas in full transformation. The artist chooses to represent a modest site, associating the architecture of construction shacks with the modern structures of the modern city. Through this work of assumed social realism, the painter shows how the division of tones can ennoble the most industrial subjects, revealing the beauty hidden in iron and wood.

In the left foreground, an imposing wooden pole vertically crosses the canvas, powerfully structuring the composition of the image. A wooden barrier extends along the bottom of the painting, bordering a sandy path that leads toward the center of the scene. On the right, a small wooden cabin with a pointed roof shelters a worker in a blue jacket busy in front of his construction door. The background is occupied by large greyish industrial buildings and factory chimneys standing out under a pale and cloudy sky. The shades of beige, brown, and blue dominate the canvas, softened by green touches brought by a few scattered trees on the right side.

Signac demonstrates here remarkable expertise by using a wider and more fluid touch to translate the roughness of construction materials. The use of oil paint brings a beautiful materiality to the barrier and the pole. This rigorous technique lends a quite striking visual poetry to the industrial landscape.