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Lot Essay
In 1889 Sisley left Veneux-Nadon for Moret-sur-Loing. He had visited the area frequently since the early 1880s, drawn to it by the rural aspects of the terrain. Sisley painted numerous views of the woods, rivers and, as in the present painting, orchards. "He sought to express the harmonies that prevail, in all weather and at every time of day, between foliage, water and sky; and he succeeded...He loved river banks; the fringes of woodlands; towns and villages glimpsed through the trees; old buildings swamped in greenery; winter morning sunlight; summer afternoons. He had a delicate way of conveying the effects of foliage" (G. Geffroy, "Sisley", Les Cahiers d'Aujourd'hui, Paris, 1923, n.p.).
Christopher Lloyd remarks that Sisley's paintings from 1888 onward: "show him at the height of his powers. All the experience of the previous decades was blended in these canvases which amount to the summation of his output: the paint is richly applied with the impasto more pronounced than in previous works, the brushwork more insistently rhythmical, the execution more rapid, and the colors more vibrant. There is little evidence to show that Sisley painted each canvas at more than one sitting or reworked the surface at later stages. Indeed the alla prima effect of these canvases amounts to a remarkable tour de force" ("Alfred Sisley and the Purity of Vision", Alfred Sisley, exh. cat., London, 1992, p. 25).
Le verger au Printemps conveys the mood of a spring day through its warm palette. Using small, rhythmic brushstrokes he enlivens the surface of the canvas. Sisley's landscape paintings often included references to the essential harmony that he envisioned between man and nature and, in Le verger au Printemps a lone figure is barely distinguishable through the alley of trees.
Christopher Lloyd remarks that Sisley's paintings from 1888 onward: "show him at the height of his powers. All the experience of the previous decades was blended in these canvases which amount to the summation of his output: the paint is richly applied with the impasto more pronounced than in previous works, the brushwork more insistently rhythmical, the execution more rapid, and the colors more vibrant. There is little evidence to show that Sisley painted each canvas at more than one sitting or reworked the surface at later stages. Indeed the alla prima effect of these canvases amounts to a remarkable tour de force" ("Alfred Sisley and the Purity of Vision", Alfred Sisley, exh. cat., London, 1992, p. 25).
Le verger au Printemps conveys the mood of a spring day through its warm palette. Using small, rhythmic brushstrokes he enlivens the surface of the canvas. Sisley's landscape paintings often included references to the essential harmony that he envisioned between man and nature and, in Le verger au Printemps a lone figure is barely distinguishable through the alley of trees.