Henri Edmond Cross

Henri-Edmond Cross, whose actual name was Henri-Edmond Delacroix, is considered one of the best-known representatives of Pointillism. His earliest works were still heavily influenced by Realism; however, through his friendship with Paul Signac, Cross came into contact with neo-Impressionist painting and, from the early 1890s onwards, he painted in a strictly divisionist manner. Set within a precisely constructed pictorial composition, regularly spaced dots of colour are placed alongside one another – these combine together to form the desired subject matter and chromatic effect only after their optical merging in the eye of the viewer. Cross’s later works from 1900 onwards are defined by a softer style, and he also increasingly turned to the technique of watercolour during this phase of his oeuvre.