.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Figure subjects, which had occupied Pissarro extensively at the beginning of the 1870s, began to re-assert their place in Pissarro's art of the early 1890s, when he began to paint a long sequence of peasants going about their daily tasks in the countryside. Paysanne et enfant, Eragny belongs to this series, which also includes many of the artist's well-known masterpieces, notably Femme étendant son linge (P&V.717; Paris, Musée d'Orsay), Femme plantant des rames (P&V. 772) or La causette (P&V.792), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
These works reflect 'that majestic tranquillity, that solemn melancholy which envelops the forms and the creatures of the fields' (R. Thomson, Camille Pissarro, London, 1990, p. 81). Indeed, such was Pissarro satisfaction with the motif in the present work that he reprised it almost exactly for a gouache a decade later.
After experimenting with the divisionist brushwork and colour theories championed by Seurat and the neo-impressionist artists, Pissarro abandoned pointillism in 1890. Yet, the emphasis on the structural web of coloured strokes which constitutes the neo-impressionist's pictorial surface drew Pissarro's attention to the physical make-up of a painting. However, he became worried by the refinement of his handling, and although he had abandoned the strict 'point', he was still using a very delicate touch. Paysanne et enfant, Eragny is painted in a manner that is a hybrid of pointillism and impressionism, where the highly-keyed colour, a legacy of the 1880s, is augmented by a freer, more vigorous handling reminiscent of the 'loaded' paint surfaces of the 1870s.
These works reflect 'that majestic tranquillity, that solemn melancholy which envelops the forms and the creatures of the fields' (R. Thomson, Camille Pissarro, London, 1990, p. 81). Indeed, such was Pissarro satisfaction with the motif in the present work that he reprised it almost exactly for a gouache a decade later.
After experimenting with the divisionist brushwork and colour theories championed by Seurat and the neo-impressionist artists, Pissarro abandoned pointillism in 1890. Yet, the emphasis on the structural web of coloured strokes which constitutes the neo-impressionist's pictorial surface drew Pissarro's attention to the physical make-up of a painting. However, he became worried by the refinement of his handling, and although he had abandoned the strict 'point', he was still using a very delicate touch. Paysanne et enfant, Eragny is painted in a manner that is a hybrid of pointillism and impressionism, where the highly-keyed colour, a legacy of the 1880s, is augmented by a freer, more vigorous handling reminiscent of the 'loaded' paint surfaces of the 1870s.