quartertonebloom: welovepaintings:

Arthur Melville 1855-1904
Dancers at the Moulin Rouge, Paris 1889
Watercolours on paper 
© National Galleries of Scotland

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During his time in France, Melville became familiar with new methods of watercolour and began to experiment with the medium. He achieved the transition from yellow to blue pigment by working directly onto wet paper and allowing areas of colour to bleed together. Unusual for the time in its abstraction, this piece might be understood as a comment on coloured electric lighting, and is perhaps the artist’s response to the replacement of gas with electrically-lit interiors.

Nationalgalleries.org