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Lot Essay
To be included in the forthcoming Camille Pissarro catalogue raisonné being prepared by Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.
Figure subjects, which had occupied Pissarro extensively at the beginning of the 1870s, began to re-assert their place in Pissarro's art of the 1890s, when he painted sequences of peasants going about their daily tasks in the countryside (fig. 1; P&V 1079). Pissarro executed a series of highly successful gouaches of this subject from circa 1888 (P&V 1424, 1478 and Christie's, 2 February 2004, lot 1) but rarely so successfully in oil as in the present work. These works reflect 'that majestic tranquillity, that solemn melancholy which envelops the forms and the creatures of the fields' (R. Thomson, Camille Pissarro, London, 1990, p. 81).
After experimenting with the divisionist brushwork and colour theories championed by Seurat and the neo-impressionist artists, Pissarro abandoned pointillism in 1890. Yet, the emphasis on the structural web of coloured strokes which constitutes the neo-impressionist's pictorial surface drew Pissarro's attention to the physical make-up of a painting. However, he became worried by the refinement of his handling, and although he had abandoned the strict 'point', he was still using a very delicate touch. Paysanne gardant des oies, Eragny is painted in a manner that is a hybrid of pointillism and impressionism, where the highly-keyed colour, a legacy of the 1880s, is augmented by a freer, more vigorous handling reminiscent of the 'loaded' paint surfaces of the 1870s.
Figure subjects, which had occupied Pissarro extensively at the beginning of the 1870s, began to re-assert their place in Pissarro's art of the 1890s, when he painted sequences of peasants going about their daily tasks in the countryside (fig. 1; P&V 1079). Pissarro executed a series of highly successful gouaches of this subject from circa 1888 (P&V 1424, 1478 and Christie's, 2 February 2004, lot 1) but rarely so successfully in oil as in the present work. These works reflect 'that majestic tranquillity, that solemn melancholy which envelops the forms and the creatures of the fields' (R. Thomson, Camille Pissarro, London, 1990, p. 81).
After experimenting with the divisionist brushwork and colour theories championed by Seurat and the neo-impressionist artists, Pissarro abandoned pointillism in 1890. Yet, the emphasis on the structural web of coloured strokes which constitutes the neo-impressionist's pictorial surface drew Pissarro's attention to the physical make-up of a painting. However, he became worried by the refinement of his handling, and although he had abandoned the strict 'point', he was still using a very delicate touch. Paysanne gardant des oies, Eragny is painted in a manner that is a hybrid of pointillism and impressionism, where the highly-keyed colour, a legacy of the 1880s, is augmented by a freer, more vigorous handling reminiscent of the 'loaded' paint surfaces of the 1870s.