In his happiest moments [Signac] succeeded in giving the modern picture—that makeshift with which we beautify our dwellings—a brilliant and even ideal form, making it a beautiful spot on the wall, that lends itself readily to a frame, and represents, if not all, yet the most valuable thing we need in a rational home—beautiful color in a beautiful form.
—Julius Meier-Graefe,
Modern Art

Paul Signac’s achievement is not insignificant. According to Meier-Graefe, the most sensitive and gifted critic of the art of the 1890s, Signac managed, in spite of his inconsistent production, to offer in his best work a taste of what had become aesthetically possible in painting. This was a result of the radical pictorial manipulations that had appeared with increasing regularity in French painting after 1860. With certain well-founded reservations, Meier-Graefe was willing to grant that, together with Georges Seurat, Si ...

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