PHOTO: © Paul Signac: Segel und Pinien, 1896, Privatsammlung
Symphonie der Farben. Paul Signac und der Neoimpressionismus
Potsdam
In the organizer's words:
Achieving the highest degree of luminosity and harmony—this was the goal to which Paul Signac dedicated himself when, in the mid-1880s, he introduced a new style of painting to the art world together with Georges Seurat. The exhibition*Symphony of Colors: Paul Signac and Neo-Impressionism*—thefirst comprehensiveSignacexhibition in Germany in 30 years—highlights the artist’s central role within the Neo-Impressionist movement and explores his influence as a theorist, networker, and exhibition organizer.
At the Impressionists’ final joint exhibition in Paris in 1886, artists who would later call themselves Neo-Impressionists exhibited their work. By juxtaposing unmixed colors, they sought to create an effect in their paintings that would evoke pure light. The landscape motifs resembled those of their Impressionist predecessors, but they replaced the latter’s airy atmosphere and spontaneous brushwork with serially applied dabs of paint in the colors of the prism. This decomposition of colors—which were no longer to be mixed on the palette but in the viewer’s eye—drew inspiration from new findings in optics and the physiology of perception.
The Neo-Impressionist paintings invite contemplation of the harmony within the image, seeking a balance between often complementary colors, between verticals and horizontals, or between surface and space. Other works feature arabesque patterns that extend across the picture plane and abstract real objects. The exhibition*Symphony of Colors: Paul Signac and Neo-Impressionism*presents the artist as one of the central figures of this movement. It highlights his artistic oeuvre, from the early coastal landscapes of the passionate sailor, through his interior and portrait paintings, to the socially utopian images of the Côte d’Azur, which he tapped as a treasure trove of motifs for Modernism.
The exhibition features over 90 works, more than a third of which are by Paul Signac. They engage in a dialogue with paintings by Lucie Cousturier, Henri-Edmond Cross, Maximilien Luce, Camille Pissarro, Théo van Rysselberghe, Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange, Georges Seurat, Jan Toorop, and others. Lenders include the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Musée du Petit Palais in Geneva, the Archives Signac in Paris, and other national and international collections.
At the Museum Barberini—which, with ten Neo-Impressionist works by Signac, Henri-Edmond Cross, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Maximilien Luce, and Camille Pissarro in the Hasso Plattner Collection, holds one of the largest collections of this movement in Germany—“Symphony of Colors: “Paul Signac and Neo-Impressionism” isalready the third exhibition project on this theme—following“Color and Light. The Neo-Impressionist Henri-Edmond Cross”(2018) and“With an Open Eye. The Impressionist Pissarro”(2025).
An exhibition presented by the Barberini Museum, Potsdam, and the Kunsthal Rotterdam.
Price information:
Mon, Wed–Fri €16 / €10, Sat/Sun/holidays €18 / €10, Free admission for those under 18 and for students; Free admission every Thursday starting at 2 p.m. for everyone under 25
Location
Weitere Termine von Symphonie der Farben. Paul Signac und der Neoimpressionismus
04.
Juli
10:00
Potsdam
Museum Barberini
16,00 €
05.
Juli
10:00
Potsdam
Museum Barberini
16,00 €
08.
Juli
10:00
Potsdam
Museum Barberini
16,00 €
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