Paysage de L'ile de France

Guillaumin met Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne in 1859, when they three were students at the Academie Suisse in Paris, and over the course of the next several years they remained in touch. While Guillaumin shared his friends interests in depicting naturalistic effects of light and atmosphere in painting, the economic and political turmoil in France during the early 1870s made it impossible for him to give up his work as a ditch digger and to dedicate himself to painting. He was not often able to participate in the informal discussions at the Café Voltaire where the group later known as the Impressionists would gather. In 1872 Pissarro invited Guillaumin and Cézanne to join him in Pontoise where he had recently resettled with his family. Later that year Pissarro introduced Guillaumin to Dr. Gachet, who invited him to paint in the company of Cézanne at his home. Later he purchased two of his paintings. Despite his spotty attendance at their gatherings, Pissarro encouraged Guillaumin to exhibit alongside them in their first exhibition at the former studio of the photographer Nadar at 35, boulevard des Capucines, in 1874. Guillaumin sent three paintings to the exhibition whose paintings were dubbed the "Impressionists." The present picture was painted the year immediately following this landmark exhibition.