In this 1887 oil, Paul Signac captures Mediterranean light with a sunlit palette and a fragmented touch that foreshadow his early divisionist experiments.

Several works from this stay in Collioure — such The Town Beach, Collioure (Opus 165), painted in 1887 and preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), and Collioure, the Bell Tower (Opus 164), held at the Kröller‑Müller Museum (Netherlands) — confirm the importance of that summer in the artist’s stylistic development.

The scene is organized around a maritime foreground where a tartane (small traditional Mediterranean sailboat) stands out against a turquoise sea, while in the background the village and its famous bell tower form a vertical counterpoint.

 The composition favors clarity and legibility: boat in the foreground, a row of hulls and sails in the middle, then the port’s architecture at the rear. This simple structuring serves the appreciation of light and color.

The painter’s touch is deliberately fragmented: Signac juxtaposes his colors rather than blending them, seeking an optical effect and chromatic vibration. Here one recognizes the beginnings of divisionism that Signac developed from 1886–1887. The warm ochres of the facades respond to the blues and greens of the sea, creating a contrast of color temperature that amplifies the sensation of Mediterranean sunlight.