Lot Essay
In November of 1889, Sisley moved to Moret-sur-Loing, a town where he had stayed and painted many times before. During his first visit ten years earlier, he had painted the river in flood (Daulte no. 340; Brooklyn Museum of Art). In the late 1880s he concentrated on the buildings of the town and in particular the bridge linking the town center with the road to Saint-Mamms. "Sisley was increasingly preoccupied with working in series, sometimes of the same strongly defined motif seen from slightly different vantage points, sometimes by simply adjusting his sight lines from a fixed point, as in the long series of paintings of Moret and its bridge" (R. Shone, Sisley, London, 1992, p. 156). After appearing in the background of several of Sisley's works, the bridge emerged as the principal subject in a number of his paintings from 1887 onwards, including the present one.
So enchanted was Sisley by the town of Moret that on 31 August 1881 he wrote to his friend Monet:
Moret is just two hours journey from Paris, and has plenty of places to let at six hundred to a thousand francs. There is a market once a week, a pretty church, and beautiful scenery round about. If you were thinking of moving, why not come and see? (quoted in M. Stevens, Alfred Sisley, London, 1992, p. 184).
Like Monet, Sisley was fascinated by the concept of executing compositions in a sequence, capturing the changing light conditions at different times of the day and year. In the present work the artist relishes the opportunity to describe the reflections of the bridge and the houses shimmering across the surface of the water in the late afternoon light. As ever, the composition is perfectly harmonious, with the expansive sky given prominence, filling half of the canvas and lending the work a bright, airy effect. As Sisley wrote to his friend, the art critic Adolphe Tavernier:
The sky is not simply a background; its planes give depth (for the sky has planes, as well as solid ground), and the shapes of clouds give movement to a picture. What is more beautiful indeed than the summer sky, with its wispy clouds floating across the blue? What movement and grace! Don't you agree? They are like waves on the sea (R. Cogniat, Sisley, Naefels, 1978, p. 85).
So enchanted was Sisley by the town of Moret that on 31 August 1881 he wrote to his friend Monet:
Moret is just two hours journey from Paris, and has plenty of places to let at six hundred to a thousand francs. There is a market once a week, a pretty church, and beautiful scenery round about. If you were thinking of moving, why not come and see? (quoted in M. Stevens, Alfred Sisley, London, 1992, p. 184).
Like Monet, Sisley was fascinated by the concept of executing compositions in a sequence, capturing the changing light conditions at different times of the day and year. In the present work the artist relishes the opportunity to describe the reflections of the bridge and the houses shimmering across the surface of the water in the late afternoon light. As ever, the composition is perfectly harmonious, with the expansive sky given prominence, filling half of the canvas and lending the work a bright, airy effect. As Sisley wrote to his friend, the art critic Adolphe Tavernier:
The sky is not simply a background; its planes give depth (for the sky has planes, as well as solid ground), and the shapes of clouds give movement to a picture. What is more beautiful indeed than the summer sky, with its wispy clouds floating across the blue? What movement and grace! Don't you agree? They are like waves on the sea (R. Cogniat, Sisley, Naefels, 1978, p. 85).