Lot Essay
The most consistently explorative of all the Impressionists, more than any artists of the period, Monet represents the movement and all it stood for. A steady and persistent worker, independent of the necessity of waiting on 'inspiration', he found a prop for creativity in 'serialism', the creation of sets of work using the same motif; thus emphasising that a whole range of equally 'real' paintings could be made of the same subject, each varying according to the quality of light and weather conditions. As his paintings of Argenteuil demonstrate, Monet had already begun developing this idea by the time he moved to Vétheuil in 1879. In Vétheuil Monet once again chose to depict scenes of nature unaffected by industrialisation: views of poppy fields, hill-sides lined with apple trees and vistas across the Seine. He repeated such motifs, experimenting with the effects of light and atmosphere. Pommiers en Fleurs can be compared to several canvases painted at around this time, particularly to one entitled Pommiers près de Vétheuil (Wildenstein 488). Through this comparison we can identify the location of this painting as the view into the valley of Vienne-en-Arthies, east of Vétheuil. In the work shown here the trees overlooking the valley are dotted with colour, small brushstrokes create the effect of dappled sunlight on the foliage, and sets them apart from the rest of the hillside. Into the distance the landscape merges into paler strokes of green and beige, with darker shadows suggesting the hamlet of Millonets in the distance.
The late 1870s and early 1880s witnessed the flowering of Monet's genuinely impressionistic work. "Colour which he now learned to use with an unprecedented purity offers an infinitely subtle and flexible alternative to the traditional massings of light and shade. Systems of inter-locking blues and oranges, for example, or lilacs and lemons will carry the eye across the surface of the canvas and these colour structures, each marvellously turned to the particulars of light, will be augmented by a vast range of accents of comma, slash, dot, flake, each attuned economically to its object that the eye is continually at work in its reading." (A. Forge, Claude Monet, exh. cat., New York, 1976).
The present picture was first exhibited in the rooms of the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1883, with about sixty other landscapes by the artist. In his review of this exhibition, Philippe Burty also noticed Monet's change of style. He wrote: "[These works] stem from a more agitated, aesthetic sense. In execution they are completely modern." Of Monet, he wrote: "Among the impressionists, no other is gifted with such spontaneity and such lively impressions, and no other is able to express them with a smuch breadth and charm...'He paints from afar', one of his colleagues told me, describing in a striking way his technique, which in fact does not consist in hunching over an easel tracing the contours of objects with a paintbrush, but rather in laying down the touch that must evoke the idea of the hue rather than the memory of the details. It is from afar that these paintings must be judged, and the near-sighted and insensitive will only perceive a confused mixed-up, tough or shaggy surface resembling the underside of a gobelin tapestry, with an excessive use of chromium-yellows and orange-yellows. But at a distance, in normal daylight, the effect is manifested through the science of lines, the calm of the tones, the amplitude of the masses, the intensity of the sun's rays, and the softness of the fall of light...We should give recognition to the artists who pursue nature in all its freshness: its gentle dawns, the troubled tides of the shores, the pastoral greenery interspersed with a thousand flowers, and the rich foliage of its trees." (Philippe Burty in La République française, trans. C. Stuckey, Monet - A Retrospective, New York, 1985, pp. 98-101).
The late 1870s and early 1880s witnessed the flowering of Monet's genuinely impressionistic work. "Colour which he now learned to use with an unprecedented purity offers an infinitely subtle and flexible alternative to the traditional massings of light and shade. Systems of inter-locking blues and oranges, for example, or lilacs and lemons will carry the eye across the surface of the canvas and these colour structures, each marvellously turned to the particulars of light, will be augmented by a vast range of accents of comma, slash, dot, flake, each attuned economically to its object that the eye is continually at work in its reading." (A. Forge, Claude Monet, exh. cat., New York, 1976).
The present picture was first exhibited in the rooms of the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1883, with about sixty other landscapes by the artist. In his review of this exhibition, Philippe Burty also noticed Monet's change of style. He wrote: "[These works] stem from a more agitated, aesthetic sense. In execution they are completely modern." Of Monet, he wrote: "Among the impressionists, no other is gifted with such spontaneity and such lively impressions, and no other is able to express them with a smuch breadth and charm...'He paints from afar', one of his colleagues told me, describing in a striking way his technique, which in fact does not consist in hunching over an easel tracing the contours of objects with a paintbrush, but rather in laying down the touch that must evoke the idea of the hue rather than the memory of the details. It is from afar that these paintings must be judged, and the near-sighted and insensitive will only perceive a confused mixed-up, tough or shaggy surface resembling the underside of a gobelin tapestry, with an excessive use of chromium-yellows and orange-yellows. But at a distance, in normal daylight, the effect is manifested through the science of lines, the calm of the tones, the amplitude of the masses, the intensity of the sun's rays, and the softness of the fall of light...We should give recognition to the artists who pursue nature in all its freshness: its gentle dawns, the troubled tides of the shores, the pastoral greenery interspersed with a thousand flowers, and the rich foliage of its trees." (Philippe Burty in La République française, trans. C. Stuckey, Monet - A Retrospective, New York, 1985, pp. 98-101).