Railway junction near Bois-Colombes

At the start of his career as an artist Signac often worked in the suburbs of Paris. Here he chose unusual and sometimes ‘ugly’ industrial subjects, such as this railway junction in Asnières, to the northwest of Paris. Signac painted the railway yard with broad brushstrokes in fairly muted colours, a far cry from the bright hues of his later paintings and lithographs. The strong verticals of the trees and telegraph poles are a striking feature of the work. By positioning a dark form in the foreground, the artist created a vista and thus introduced greater depth in the picture.