Henri Edmond Cross

Born in 1856 in Douai in northern France as Henri Edmond Delacroix, Cross is considered one of the greatest masters of Neo-Impressionism together with Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. While his early work is characterized by sombre, dark colours and realistic forms, his style changed after engaging with Neo-Impressionist painting and his personal exchange with artists like Henri Matisse and Paul Signac. Cross – as he called himself from 1883 – soon adopted their technique in which paint was not applied in planes but as a grid system of approximately equal-sized dots and dashes across the entire support. The dots are composed of pure, unmixed pigment that, when seen from a certain distance, are optically blended by the viewer’s eye to produce an impression of tonal gradations. Turning to a light, lucid style and favouring plein-air painting, Cross found his motifs on his many travels to the coast of Provence, Umbria and Venice, where this particular work was painted in situ. Beneath the arch of a bridge, this watercolour shows two boats drifting on the rippling waters of the Venetian lagoon. Behind is a vibrant yellow façade, hung with fishing nets, which leads the eye diagonally into the pictorial depths. Three sturdy posts jut out of the water in verticals and a second façade indicates the continuation of the canal. The façade is reflected in the water in an array of yellows, oranges, and purples rendered with broad, dynamic brushstrokes, warm colours that are delightfully contrasted with the cool greeny blues of the shady foreground. Cross has skilfully varied his brushwork: the foreground water is represented in horizontal strokes while in the background he introduced vertical dabs. A harmonious composition is also achieved through the opposing diagonals of the boat and façade. This medley of brush movement is held together by the arch of the bridge, painted in planes of colour and spanning the entire width of the watercolour. Through his brilliant balancing of colour for each pictorial element, their finely attuned arrangement in the picture space, and the harmonious relationship between passages of light and shadow, Cross played a major role for the next generation of painters, particularly regarding the development of Fauvism.