Studies of a Landscape, a Female Head, and a Cellist; verso: blank page

The words that Cross ascribes to the French writer Anatole France (Jacques Anatole François Thibault, 1844-1924) refer to contemporary utopian ideas about a future society. Cross had affinity with these ideas. With others in the Neo-Impressionist circle like Signac, Pissarro, and Luce he supported the anarchism of Jean Grave (1854-1939) by providing illustrations for Grave's "Les Temps nouveaux," which spread the ideas of Pierre Kropotkin (1842-1921). They dreamt of a so-called Golden Age that would become reality after the destruction of the bourgeois society. Cross visualised this golden age in paintings of sunbathed, harmonious gatherings at the waterside. Interestingly enough, Cross's friend the painter Paul Signac called the Brussels house that he moved into in 1897 the "joyous house" and the "city of the future." Signac and Cross spent much time together in 1897, so Cross's note might be directly related to his friend's remark.