Lot Essay
To be included in the forthcoming Camille Pissarro catalogue raisonné being prepared by Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.
Les quatre saisons, a cycle of four landscapes representing the seasons, marks a critical juncture in Pissarro's oeuvre. Painted at Louveciennes and Pontoise in 1872-1873, the works were the first major commission that the artist ever received from a collector. They are also one of his finest achievements from the early 1870s, a period that has been called "the apex of Pissarro's career as a landscape painter" (R.R. Brettell, op. cit., p. 160). In his seminal study of Pissarro's work from these years, Richard Brettell proclaims, "Les quatre saisons can be read in almost every way as a summa. They take their place within two of the most productive years in Pissarro's career. The images can be taken as proof--as much a proof as the painter's own testimony or the words of friends and subsequent historians--of his faith in France after the debacle of the Franco-Prussian War. They can be justifiably seen as the single most important manifestation of Pissarro's interests during the classic Pontoise period" (ibid., p. 155).
In a letter to his son Lucien, Pissarro identified L'Hiver as a scene of Louveciennes, a picturesque hamlet in the valley of the Seine where the artist lived from December 1868 until February 1872 (with the exception of a seven month stay in England during the Franco-Prussian War). The remaining three canvases were executed on the outskirts of Pontoise, a bustling market town about twenty-five miles northwest of Paris. Pissarro had lived at Pontoise from 1866 until 1888 and returned there in 1872 following his departure from Louveciennes, remaining this time for more than a decade. It was during this second stay at Pontoise that Pissarro fully developed his Impressionist technique. His Pontoise pictures were to have a profound influence upon a whole generation of painters, notably Cézanne and Gauguin, who came to the Oise valley to work alongside the older painter (fig. 1). Christopher Lloyd and Anne Distel have noted:
Stylistically, the first half of the 1870s is perhaps Pissarro's best known creative period, and the canvases painted in England and shortly afterwards in France have been more readily appreciated than those painted at any other time in his whole career. The artist retains a firmly controlled geometric structure as the framework for his compositions, but he employs a lighter touch in his brushwork and a brighter palette, both of which show the influence of Monet, whose technique of freely applying broken, separate patches of pure pigment Pissarro approached closely at this time. The paintings dating from the opening years of the 1870s therefore may, like those of Monet and Renoir, with good reason be described as the most purely Impressionist in Pissarro's entire oeuvre (Pissarro, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London, 1980, p. 79).
The four seasons constitute a major theme throughout the history of poetry, music, and painting. Traditionally, the cycle of nature was used as an allegory of the biological or moral course of man's life, with spring, for instance, representing either birth or innocence. A prime example is a series of four landscapes by Poussin that Pissarro surely knew, in which each of the seasons is paired with a story from the Old Testament (Musée du Louvre, Paris). In Pissarro's Quatre saisons, by contrast, the genre has been rid almost entirely of allegorical content. Each canvas depicts a panoramic landscape with distinct seasonal markers: blossoming trees in spring, sheaves of freshly cut wheat in summer, haystacks in autumn, and snow-covered branches in winter. The emphasis is on the regenerative cycle of nature, whose rhythms are controllable and essentially benign. As Brettell has written:
Pissarro's Quatre saisons are optimistic and iconographically simple. By using the panoramic format favored by Daubigny and used by many mid-century artists, Pissarro has freed himself from much of the iconography of the seasons. There are no potent forms, no allegorical subjects, and, by diminishing the forms, he has detached the viewer from his landscape, which can be read with a grand detachment. The eye reads quickly and dramatically in and along the surface of the ever-productive earth because he has avoided any powerful foreground forms. Even winter, a landscape of almost savage severity for Poussin, is, for Pissarro, a huddle of warm houses, gathered at the base of a protective hillside against the inclement weather. Les quatres saisons suggest that redemption on earth is possible, and, not only on earth, but in France and in Pontoise (R.R. Brettell, op. cit., p. 155).
The chronology of Les quatre saisons can be established with some certainty. In a letter to Lucien nearly two decades later, Pissarro recalled that the pictures had been executed in 1872-1873. L'Hiver must have been painted first, before Pissarro left Louveciennes for Pontoise in February 1872. The spring landscape, Le Printemps, bears the date '1872,' suggesting that it was painted shortly after Pissarro's arrival at Pontoise. The remaining two canvases, L'Eté and L'Automne, are clearly related to a pair of smaller paintings, both of which are dated '1873' (figs. 2-3). This indicates that the summer and autumn landscapes were the last two paintings of the cycle to be executed, more than a year after Pissarro had begun the project. The scenes of spring, summer, and autumn are closely united by composition and palette. All three have the same low, sweeping horizon and spacious, cloud-flecked sky. Moreover, the fields in each are comprised of a balanced juxtaposition of green and brown planes, suggesting a continuum among the various phases of the harvest. Although L'Hiver differs from the remaining three scenes in obvious ways, it shares with them the elongated, panoramic perspective and preponderance of warm, ocher tonalities.
The history of Les quatre saisons is particularly noteworthy as well. The cycle was commissioned by a banker named Achille Arosa, who probably met Pissarro through his brother Gustave Arosa, the godfather of Paul Gauguin and one of the most important early collectors of Impressionist art. Achille Arosa installed the canvases in his home over a group of four doors, where they remained until his death. The paintings were exhibited publicly for the first time at the sale of Arosa's collection in 1891. Pissarro was delighted to see the pictures after nearly twenty years, commenting to his son Lucien, "The canvases are well preserved, gray and delicate, particularly Effet de neige [L'Hiver] done at Louveciennes, which is very good" (quoted in J. Rewald, op. cit., p. 168). Les quatre saisons also made a powerful impression among dealers and collectors. The Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris purchased the cycle for nearly three times what Arosa had paid. Shortly thereafter, Pissarro received offers for a one-man show from three competing dealers: Bernheim, Boussod and Valadon, and Durand-Ruel. In a letter to Lucien dated six months after the Arosa sale, Pissarro wrote, "Bernheim, of the rue Lafitte, bought four panels at auction. These works, framed superbly, were shown in the window and made a sensation. Everybody spoke of them to me. Yesterday Bernheim said to me, 'If you want, I will organize a show for you. Your moment has come!'" (quoted in ibid., p. 189).
Due to the apparent contrast between L'Hiver and the other three scenes, Bernheim chose to split up Les quatre saisons, selling the snowscape to Alex Reid in 1892 and the remaining canvases to Durand-Ruel two years later. The dealer Paul Cassirer re-united the works shortly thereafter, purchasing L'Hiver at auction in 1898 and persuading Durand-Ruel to sell in 1901. Since then, the four paintings have always remained together. During the first decade of the 20th century, Cassirer sold them to his brother Hugo, an industrialist in Berlin, who loaned them to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. for more than twenty-five years. In 1971, when Cassirer's estate was dispersed, the cycle was offered at auction and passed into the hands of another private European collector.
(fig. 1) Paul Cézanne, Portrait de Pissarro, circa 1874-1877. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Barcode 20727000
(fig. 2) Camille Pissarro, Le champ de blé, 1873. Private collection. Barcode 20726997
(fig. 3) Camille Pissarro, Paysage, plaine avec meules à gauche, 1873. Private collection. Barcode 20726980
Les quatre saisons, a cycle of four landscapes representing the seasons, marks a critical juncture in Pissarro's oeuvre. Painted at Louveciennes and Pontoise in 1872-1873, the works were the first major commission that the artist ever received from a collector. They are also one of his finest achievements from the early 1870s, a period that has been called "the apex of Pissarro's career as a landscape painter" (R.R. Brettell, op. cit., p. 160). In his seminal study of Pissarro's work from these years, Richard Brettell proclaims, "Les quatre saisons can be read in almost every way as a summa. They take their place within two of the most productive years in Pissarro's career. The images can be taken as proof--as much a proof as the painter's own testimony or the words of friends and subsequent historians--of his faith in France after the debacle of the Franco-Prussian War. They can be justifiably seen as the single most important manifestation of Pissarro's interests during the classic Pontoise period" (ibid., p. 155).
In a letter to his son Lucien, Pissarro identified L'Hiver as a scene of Louveciennes, a picturesque hamlet in the valley of the Seine where the artist lived from December 1868 until February 1872 (with the exception of a seven month stay in England during the Franco-Prussian War). The remaining three canvases were executed on the outskirts of Pontoise, a bustling market town about twenty-five miles northwest of Paris. Pissarro had lived at Pontoise from 1866 until 1888 and returned there in 1872 following his departure from Louveciennes, remaining this time for more than a decade. It was during this second stay at Pontoise that Pissarro fully developed his Impressionist technique. His Pontoise pictures were to have a profound influence upon a whole generation of painters, notably Cézanne and Gauguin, who came to the Oise valley to work alongside the older painter (fig. 1). Christopher Lloyd and Anne Distel have noted:
Stylistically, the first half of the 1870s is perhaps Pissarro's best known creative period, and the canvases painted in England and shortly afterwards in France have been more readily appreciated than those painted at any other time in his whole career. The artist retains a firmly controlled geometric structure as the framework for his compositions, but he employs a lighter touch in his brushwork and a brighter palette, both of which show the influence of Monet, whose technique of freely applying broken, separate patches of pure pigment Pissarro approached closely at this time. The paintings dating from the opening years of the 1870s therefore may, like those of Monet and Renoir, with good reason be described as the most purely Impressionist in Pissarro's entire oeuvre (Pissarro, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London, 1980, p. 79).
The four seasons constitute a major theme throughout the history of poetry, music, and painting. Traditionally, the cycle of nature was used as an allegory of the biological or moral course of man's life, with spring, for instance, representing either birth or innocence. A prime example is a series of four landscapes by Poussin that Pissarro surely knew, in which each of the seasons is paired with a story from the Old Testament (Musée du Louvre, Paris). In Pissarro's Quatre saisons, by contrast, the genre has been rid almost entirely of allegorical content. Each canvas depicts a panoramic landscape with distinct seasonal markers: blossoming trees in spring, sheaves of freshly cut wheat in summer, haystacks in autumn, and snow-covered branches in winter. The emphasis is on the regenerative cycle of nature, whose rhythms are controllable and essentially benign. As Brettell has written:
Pissarro's Quatre saisons are optimistic and iconographically simple. By using the panoramic format favored by Daubigny and used by many mid-century artists, Pissarro has freed himself from much of the iconography of the seasons. There are no potent forms, no allegorical subjects, and, by diminishing the forms, he has detached the viewer from his landscape, which can be read with a grand detachment. The eye reads quickly and dramatically in and along the surface of the ever-productive earth because he has avoided any powerful foreground forms. Even winter, a landscape of almost savage severity for Poussin, is, for Pissarro, a huddle of warm houses, gathered at the base of a protective hillside against the inclement weather. Les quatres saisons suggest that redemption on earth is possible, and, not only on earth, but in France and in Pontoise (R.R. Brettell, op. cit., p. 155).
The chronology of Les quatre saisons can be established with some certainty. In a letter to Lucien nearly two decades later, Pissarro recalled that the pictures had been executed in 1872-1873. L'Hiver must have been painted first, before Pissarro left Louveciennes for Pontoise in February 1872. The spring landscape, Le Printemps, bears the date '1872,' suggesting that it was painted shortly after Pissarro's arrival at Pontoise. The remaining two canvases, L'Eté and L'Automne, are clearly related to a pair of smaller paintings, both of which are dated '1873' (figs. 2-3). This indicates that the summer and autumn landscapes were the last two paintings of the cycle to be executed, more than a year after Pissarro had begun the project. The scenes of spring, summer, and autumn are closely united by composition and palette. All three have the same low, sweeping horizon and spacious, cloud-flecked sky. Moreover, the fields in each are comprised of a balanced juxtaposition of green and brown planes, suggesting a continuum among the various phases of the harvest. Although L'Hiver differs from the remaining three scenes in obvious ways, it shares with them the elongated, panoramic perspective and preponderance of warm, ocher tonalities.
The history of Les quatre saisons is particularly noteworthy as well. The cycle was commissioned by a banker named Achille Arosa, who probably met Pissarro through his brother Gustave Arosa, the godfather of Paul Gauguin and one of the most important early collectors of Impressionist art. Achille Arosa installed the canvases in his home over a group of four doors, where they remained until his death. The paintings were exhibited publicly for the first time at the sale of Arosa's collection in 1891. Pissarro was delighted to see the pictures after nearly twenty years, commenting to his son Lucien, "The canvases are well preserved, gray and delicate, particularly Effet de neige [L'Hiver] done at Louveciennes, which is very good" (quoted in J. Rewald, op. cit., p. 168). Les quatre saisons also made a powerful impression among dealers and collectors. The Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris purchased the cycle for nearly three times what Arosa had paid. Shortly thereafter, Pissarro received offers for a one-man show from three competing dealers: Bernheim, Boussod and Valadon, and Durand-Ruel. In a letter to Lucien dated six months after the Arosa sale, Pissarro wrote, "Bernheim, of the rue Lafitte, bought four panels at auction. These works, framed superbly, were shown in the window and made a sensation. Everybody spoke of them to me. Yesterday Bernheim said to me, 'If you want, I will organize a show for you. Your moment has come!'" (quoted in ibid., p. 189).
Due to the apparent contrast between L'Hiver and the other three scenes, Bernheim chose to split up Les quatre saisons, selling the snowscape to Alex Reid in 1892 and the remaining canvases to Durand-Ruel two years later. The dealer Paul Cassirer re-united the works shortly thereafter, purchasing L'Hiver at auction in 1898 and persuading Durand-Ruel to sell in 1901. Since then, the four paintings have always remained together. During the first decade of the 20th century, Cassirer sold them to his brother Hugo, an industrialist in Berlin, who loaned them to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. for more than twenty-five years. In 1971, when Cassirer's estate was dispersed, the cycle was offered at auction and passed into the hands of another private European collector.
(fig. 1) Paul Cézanne, Portrait de Pissarro, circa 1874-1877. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Barcode 20727000
(fig. 2) Camille Pissarro, Le champ de blé, 1873. Private collection. Barcode 20726997
(fig. 3) Camille Pissarro, Paysage, plaine avec meules à gauche, 1873. Private collection. Barcode 20726980