[2] Many of Signac's close friends and colleagues, including Félix Fénéon and Maximilien Luce, were jailed in Mazas prison and tried as part of the Trial of the Thirty for their anarchist connections but Signac was able to avoid imprisonment in part because of the indirect manner in which he depicted socialist themes in his work.

For example, when he was creating the composition of the painting, he added in a rooster in the bottom right corner, which could serve equally as a symbol of a new dawn and as a reference to anarchist politics.

"[3] The multiple titles of the piece also played a role in its ambiguous meaning, variously presenting the work as a scene of outdoor "harmony" or as an expression of protest and political resistance.

In a thank you note to Jean Grave for sending his book La Société mourante et l'anarchie, Signac wrote, "the hope of that near future in which at last, for the first time, every individuality will be free... what practical and habitable monuments you are erecting!

[2] From this vision of a freer society, Signac began to create In the Time of Harmony with Saint Tropez as his backdrop.

He was also inspired by the work of other artists, including Pierre Puvis de Chavannes' painting Pleasant Land.