Lot Essay
In the autumn of 1883, Sisley settled in Saint-Mammès, a small village close to the confluence of the rivers Seine and Loing, twenty miles south-east of Paris. Between 1882 and 1885 he executed a series of works from different vantage points along the banks of the river Loing. In this series, Sisley is intersted not only in depicting the innumerable types of river craft which made up the life of the Loing--"the picturesque berrichon, the flat-bottomed margota used for the haulage and the predominant péniche, a large multi-purpose barge" (R. Shore, op. cit., p. 148)--but also in capturing the landscape at different times of day and during different seasons. As the critic Gustave Geffroy wrote in 1923:
He sought to express the harmonies that prevail, in all weathers and at every time of day, between foliage, water and sky, and he succeeded... He loved river banks; the fringes of woodland; towns and villages glimpsed through the trees; old buildings swamped in greenery; winter morning sunlight; summer afternoons. (G. Geffroy, "Sisley," Les Cahiers d'Aujourd'hui, Paris, 1923)
And another critic, writing in the Paris Journal in the 1880s similarly commented:
Sisley has masterfully taken possession of the banks and waters of the Seine where the breeze, like a moving mirror, splinters into a thousand pieces the gold of autumn leaves and scatters the opal reflections of light, fleecy clouds. (E. Chesneau, op. cit.)
The best pictures of the Saint-Mammès series, the present work among them, are drenched in sunlight, with large, bright skies. As Sisley himself commented not long after painting the present scene:
Objects should be rendered with their own textures and above all, they should be bathed in light as they are in nature. This is what we should be striving to achieve. The sky itself is the medium. (V. Couldry, op. cit., p. 71)
He sought to express the harmonies that prevail, in all weathers and at every time of day, between foliage, water and sky, and he succeeded... He loved river banks; the fringes of woodland; towns and villages glimpsed through the trees; old buildings swamped in greenery; winter morning sunlight; summer afternoons. (G. Geffroy, "Sisley," Les Cahiers d'Aujourd'hui, Paris, 1923)
And another critic, writing in the Paris Journal in the 1880s similarly commented:
Sisley has masterfully taken possession of the banks and waters of the Seine where the breeze, like a moving mirror, splinters into a thousand pieces the gold of autumn leaves and scatters the opal reflections of light, fleecy clouds. (E. Chesneau, op. cit.)
The best pictures of the Saint-Mammès series, the present work among them, are drenched in sunlight, with large, bright skies. As Sisley himself commented not long after painting the present scene:
Objects should be rendered with their own textures and above all, they should be bathed in light as they are in nature. This is what we should be striving to achieve. The sky itself is the medium. (V. Couldry, op. cit., p. 71)