.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Several of Pissarro's figurative pictures of the 1890s, such as Femme la brouette, were painted with the encouragement of Pissarro's dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel. In a letter to his son, Pissarro wrote about the present work: '...je prpare ici quelques toiles que je continuerai Eragny, des figures que Durand me demande; il m'a dit avoir vue chez l'Abb Gaugain la Femme la brouette et trouve cela patant, j'espre que ce que je vais faire le satisfera' (letter 3 July 1893, Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, vol. III, Paris, 1988, p. 341).
Figure subjects became more important in Pissarro's work of the early 1890s, as he began to paint a long sequence of peasants going about their daily tasks in the countryside. Femme la brouette belongs to this series, which also includes many of the artist's well-known masterpieces, notably Femme tendant son linge (fig. 2), Femme plantant des rames (P.& V. 772) or La causette (P.& V. 792), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 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 brush work 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. 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. Femme la brouette is painted in a manner that is a hybrid of Pointillism and Impressionism.
Figure subjects became more important in Pissarro's work of the early 1890s, as he began to paint a long sequence of peasants going about their daily tasks in the countryside. Femme la brouette belongs to this series, which also includes many of the artist's well-known masterpieces, notably Femme tendant son linge (fig. 2), Femme plantant des rames (P.& V. 772) or La causette (P.& V. 792), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 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 brush work 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. 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. Femme la brouette is painted in a manner that is a hybrid of Pointillism and Impressionism.