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In 1891, Henri Cross began painting in a pointillist style influenced by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. He also left Paris and moved to the south of France, settling in Saint-Clair, a small village near Saint-Tropez. There, he concentrated on seascapes and scenes of peasants in harmony with nature. The sensuous silhouettes of cypresses and the swaying circle of figures by the water’s edge exemplify Cross’s decorative treatment of landscape, also recalling the Japanese color woodcuts and Art Nouveau designs that inspired other neo-Impressionists at the time.
France, 19th century
color lithograph on chine collé
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland in memory of Mrs. Ralph King
Paul Sérusier’s Les Laveuses à la Laïta (1892) is a quiet marvel of Symbolist landscape painting, and I’ve found several images of it for you.
This oil on canvas, now in the Musée d'Orsay, depicts two Breton women carrying freshly washed linens from the banks of the Laïta River near Le Pouldu. But Sérusier wasn’t just documenting rural life—he was distilling it into pure visual poetry. The composition is horizontal and meditative, with simplified forms and a muted palette that evoke serenity and timelessness.
Sérusier, a founding member of the Nabis, was deeply influenced by Gauguin’s teachings in Pont-Aven. You can see that influence here: the flattened perspective, the rhythmic arrangement of trees, and the symbolic use of color all reflect a move away from naturalism toward inner vision.
This painting feels like a whispered memory—part folklore, part dream
Paul Signac
Oil on canvas
Taken in Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay, in the Beaux-Arts former railway station of Gare d'Orsay, built 1898-1900 for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans, designed by Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard and Victor Laloux. The train services were electric, which defined the building structure and allowed a canopy rather than train shed. Until 1939 the station was the terminus for trains from the southwest, until the trains became too large for the station to support, with suburban services continuing for a bit longer. After being railway station, the building was used as a mailing centre during the war and then to process prisoners of war (returning or departing). Post-war, the building was used for various films and theatre, before coming under threat of demolition in the 1970s, and then proposed as a museum - a competition was held in 1978 and the contract awarded to ACT Architecture (Pierre Colboc, Renaud Bardon and Jean-Paul Philippon) and Gae Aulenti to design the interior. The museum was formally opened in December 1986 by President François Mitterrand.