Lot Essay
In 1872 Pissarro moved from Louveciennes to Pontoise. For the next decade, Pissarro stayed in Pontoise, assiduously studying a complex and diverse array of motifs that he discovered in the local surroundings, including the hamlets of L'Hermitage and Saint-Martin. In his study of Pissarro's work, Richard Bretell has termed 1872 to 1873 "the classic Pontoise period," stating:
When the history of Impressionism is rewritten in another hundred years, Pissarro's paintings of 1872 and 1873 will be considered... as great, in their way, as Corot's work from his first trips to Italy or as Monet's landscapes from the late 1860s. Pissarro's style in the classic Pontoise period derived from the combined example of Monet and Turner, grafted to his by then familiar version of Corot's style...
In returning from Louveciennes and its restricted imagery to Pontoise, Pissarro had returned to his own landscape, rejecting implicitly the kind of landscape world endorsed by Monet and Renoir for the more bracing "realities" of his own. His style, although technically unchanged since Louveciennes and Upper Norwood days, broadened somewhat. His palette became lighter and brighter, although he continued to show a Corotesque obsession with value structure rather than hue. His execution became more confident and unproblematic without losing its fundamentally geometric quality. (R. Brettell, Pissarro and Pontoise, New Haven, 1990, pp. 151 and 160)
When the history of Impressionism is rewritten in another hundred years, Pissarro's paintings of 1872 and 1873 will be considered... as great, in their way, as Corot's work from his first trips to Italy or as Monet's landscapes from the late 1860s. Pissarro's style in the classic Pontoise period derived from the combined example of Monet and Turner, grafted to his by then familiar version of Corot's style...
In returning from Louveciennes and its restricted imagery to Pontoise, Pissarro had returned to his own landscape, rejecting implicitly the kind of landscape world endorsed by Monet and Renoir for the more bracing "realities" of his own. His style, although technically unchanged since Louveciennes and Upper Norwood days, broadened somewhat. His palette became lighter and brighter, although he continued to show a Corotesque obsession with value structure rather than hue. His execution became more confident and unproblematic without losing its fundamentally geometric quality. (R. Brettell, Pissarro and Pontoise, New Haven, 1990, pp. 151 and 160)