Without question, the tache (blot, patch, stain) is a central and recurring motif in nineteenth-century modernist painting. Manet's and the Impressionists rejection of academic finish produced a surface where the strokes of paint were presented directly, as patches or blots, then indirectly as legible signs. Cezanne, Seurat, and Signac painted exclusively with patches or dots. Through a series of close readings, this book looks at the tache as one of the most important features in nineteenth-century modernism. The tache is a potential meeting point between text and image and a pure trace of...