Lot Essay
In April 1884 Pissarro settled in Eragny-Bazincourt near Gisors. In a letter to Lucien, dated 1 March, 1884, Pissarro wrote, "The house is wonderful and not too dear: a thousand francs with garden and fields. It is about two hours from Paris... I found the country much more beautiful... the fields are green, outlines are delicate in the distance. Gisors is superb." (J. Rewald (ed.), Camille Pissarro, Letters to His Son Lucien, New York, 1943, p. 58)
With some financial help from Monet, Pissarro was able to buy the house. It had a huge garden with an orchard and he converted a substantial barn into his studio which overlooked the orchard and meadows leading to the neighbouring village of Bazincourt. The present painting might well have been executed from his studio looking over to the open fields towards Bazincourt.
During the early 1880s, the Impressionists searched for a change from their initial landmark pictures of the 1870s. Both Monet and Renoir travelled south seeking new subjects and light conditions. However, Pissarro remained in the vicinity of Paris focusing on his technique. This resulted in notable changes in Pissarro's paintings between 1880 and 1885. "Firstly regarding the composition, there is less emphasis on recession and spatial depth. The basic elements - foreground, middle distance and background - tend to be flattened, so that the design is read upwards as a series of horizontal bands... Pissarro's technique continues to evolve in favour of small, evenly distributed, and heavily loaded brushstrokes sometimes applied in parallel... The palette also becomes much more diverse as the artist applies smaller patches of pure colour." (Exhibition catalogue, Camille Pissarro, London, Paris and Boston, 1981, p. 116)
"The late rural paintings of Pissarro were particularly admired by Georges Lecomte who, on several occasions wrote eulogistically about them. 'If the painter powerfully elucidates the fecundity of the soil, the germinations, the luxuriant growths, and the noble breath of the earth's modulations, he always populates his fertile fields and his meadows with active peasants and living animals. Creatures and objects emerge with a shining clarity: The air circulates around them; dazzling vapours of gold cast haloes around them. It is the glorious rapture of nature dressed overall... there's always the calming sense of space, so silent, and without any disturbance other than that, so appropriately harmonizing, of the star throwing out its light. It is the essence of the countryside, the spirit of the fields that these melodious symphonies reveal'." (C. Lloyd, Camille Pissarro, London, 1981, p. 112)
The critic Théodore Duret wrote in 1880, "Pissarro has kept a very marked personality among the other impressionists. To describe him at one stroke one may say that he is the painter of rustic nature and rural life... We are thankful to him for this honesty which has applied itself to depicting nature beyond such conventional limitations. We like the way he has expressed the loneliness of the countryside, the peacefulness of the villages and the smell of the earth, the fields interpreted by him in their simplicity had a soul and emitted a penetrating charm." (Camille Pissarro, His Place in Art, Exhibition Catalogue, Wildenstein, New York, 1945, p. 21)
With some financial help from Monet, Pissarro was able to buy the house. It had a huge garden with an orchard and he converted a substantial barn into his studio which overlooked the orchard and meadows leading to the neighbouring village of Bazincourt. The present painting might well have been executed from his studio looking over to the open fields towards Bazincourt.
During the early 1880s, the Impressionists searched for a change from their initial landmark pictures of the 1870s. Both Monet and Renoir travelled south seeking new subjects and light conditions. However, Pissarro remained in the vicinity of Paris focusing on his technique. This resulted in notable changes in Pissarro's paintings between 1880 and 1885. "Firstly regarding the composition, there is less emphasis on recession and spatial depth. The basic elements - foreground, middle distance and background - tend to be flattened, so that the design is read upwards as a series of horizontal bands... Pissarro's technique continues to evolve in favour of small, evenly distributed, and heavily loaded brushstrokes sometimes applied in parallel... The palette also becomes much more diverse as the artist applies smaller patches of pure colour." (Exhibition catalogue, Camille Pissarro, London, Paris and Boston, 1981, p. 116)
"The late rural paintings of Pissarro were particularly admired by Georges Lecomte who, on several occasions wrote eulogistically about them. 'If the painter powerfully elucidates the fecundity of the soil, the germinations, the luxuriant growths, and the noble breath of the earth's modulations, he always populates his fertile fields and his meadows with active peasants and living animals. Creatures and objects emerge with a shining clarity: The air circulates around them; dazzling vapours of gold cast haloes around them. It is the glorious rapture of nature dressed overall... there's always the calming sense of space, so silent, and without any disturbance other than that, so appropriately harmonizing, of the star throwing out its light. It is the essence of the countryside, the spirit of the fields that these melodious symphonies reveal'." (C. Lloyd, Camille Pissarro, London, 1981, p. 112)
The critic Théodore Duret wrote in 1880, "Pissarro has kept a very marked personality among the other impressionists. To describe him at one stroke one may say that he is the painter of rustic nature and rural life... We are thankful to him for this honesty which has applied itself to depicting nature beyond such conventional limitations. We like the way he has expressed the loneliness of the countryside, the peacefulness of the villages and the smell of the earth, the fields interpreted by him in their simplicity had a soul and emitted a penetrating charm." (Camille Pissarro, His Place in Art, Exhibition Catalogue, Wildenstein, New York, 1945, p. 21)