Capo di Noli, near Genoa

The pink cliffs and green pines of Capo Noli plunging into the blue Ligurian Sea — Signac's Riviera in mosaic-bright colour.

The landscape depicted

Italian Riviera

The painting depicts a real landscape or cityscape. The precise viewpoint the artist used may be unknown, so the marker shows the general area.

Capo di Noli, near Genoa — at a glance

Artist

Paul Signac (1863–1935)

Year

1898

Movement

Neo-Impressionism (Pointillism / Divisionism)

Place

Capo Noli, Ligurian coast between Savona and Noli, Italy

Viewpoint

The pink cliffs of the headland — still there, a protected area much visited; the colour is heightened

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

c. 93 × 75 cm

Now at

Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne

Overview

Cap de Noli is one of the Mediterranean coast pictures Paul Signac painted after settling at Saint-Tropez, made on a trip along the Ligurian Riviera in 1898. It shows the rocky headland of Capo Noli: warm pink-and-ochre cliffs dropping steeply, dark umbrella pines clinging to them, a strip of beach or road, and the turquoise-and-blue sea, all built up from small square touches of pure, high colour. It is oil on canvas, about 93 by 75 cm, and it hangs in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne.

Where was Capo di Noli, near Genoa painted?

Scholarship Capo Noli is a limestone promontory on the Riviera di Ponente, on the coast of Liguria between Savona and the small medieval town of Noli, west of Genoa. Its steep pink cliffs, pines and the coast road and railway that thread past them are still there and much visited; the headland is a protected natural area. Signac's viewpoint along the cliffs can be broadly matched, though the colour is his own heightening.

Real placeItalian Riviera

ViewpointThe landscape depicted

Coordinates44.43592, 8.78222

Original now atWallraf–Richartz Museum, on public display

The landscape depicted Current museum

What is in the painting?

The cliff fills most of the picture, rising from the lower right — bands of warm rose, orange and mauve rock, tufted with the dark rounded forms of pine trees. A pale ribbon of path or beach runs along its foot; the sea is a broad expanse of turquoise, green and violet-blue, meeting a light sky. Everything is laid in separate rectangular strokes of unmixed colour.

Look closely

The banded cliff

Warm rose, orange and mauve rock rises from the lower right, tufted with dark pines.

The umbrella pines

Dark rounded pine crowns cling to the steep cliff face.

The mosaic strokes

The whole surface is separate rectangular touches of unmixed colour, blended by the eye.

Analysis

Composition and technique

A steep coloured cliff mass against sea and sky, built entirely from a mosaic of separate high-colour touches.

Scholarship Signac, by now using larger, mosaic-like touches rather than fine points, keys the whole picture to intense complementary contrasts — pink and orange rock against blue-green sea — and lets the eye do the blending. The design is simple and bold; the colour is the subject.

Capo di Noli, near Genoa

Italian Riviera