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Lot Essay
Pissarro's move to Eragny-sur-Epte in 1884 resulted in a watershed period in his work. His interest in landscape painting, of which he had been a trailblazing Impressionist pioneer, was now superseded by an interest in humanity. Increasingly, it was the life and interaction of the peasants in Eragny and its surroundings that he portrayed in his works. This change in his output was partly encouraged by the simple fact that Eragny's topography provided far less scope for landscape painting.
Executed circa 1884, Jeunes paysannes causant shows the intense warmth that Pissarro brought to his newly favoured subject matter. His enthusiastic application of the colours to the sheet implies that this subject was taken from life, while 'the godfather of Impressionism' still striving to capture the scene as it unfolded, which contributes an engaging immediacy to the work. This charming vignette of rural life in the late 19th Century reveals not only the artist's enthusiasm for the theme, but also his own emotional involvement in it.
Intriguingly, it has been pointed out that the shift towards figurative subjects marked a rare moment of business acumen for Pissarro, who found himself persistently financially embattled. For several years, the scenes of peasant girls that Millet had painted had been selling for astounding prices, while the market for landscape was glutted by the numerous competing artists painting at the time. Pissarro's decision paid off, if not financially, then at least in terms of the reception of his work, which became more widely celebrated during these first years at Eragny.
At the end of the 1880s, Pissarro became increasingly involved in the Neo-Impressionism of Seurat and Signac. This was a natural evolution for him, as he had long experimented with the possibilities of colour theory. In Jeunes paysannes causant, we see the use of the dark blue in the right-hand woman's hair and shadow that appears to foretell these later developments.
Executed circa 1884, Jeunes paysannes causant shows the intense warmth that Pissarro brought to his newly favoured subject matter. His enthusiastic application of the colours to the sheet implies that this subject was taken from life, while 'the godfather of Impressionism' still striving to capture the scene as it unfolded, which contributes an engaging immediacy to the work. This charming vignette of rural life in the late 19th Century reveals not only the artist's enthusiasm for the theme, but also his own emotional involvement in it.
Intriguingly, it has been pointed out that the shift towards figurative subjects marked a rare moment of business acumen for Pissarro, who found himself persistently financially embattled. For several years, the scenes of peasant girls that Millet had painted had been selling for astounding prices, while the market for landscape was glutted by the numerous competing artists painting at the time. Pissarro's decision paid off, if not financially, then at least in terms of the reception of his work, which became more widely celebrated during these first years at Eragny.
At the end of the 1880s, Pissarro became increasingly involved in the Neo-Impressionism of Seurat and Signac. This was a natural evolution for him, as he had long experimented with the possibilities of colour theory. In Jeunes paysannes causant, we see the use of the dark blue in the right-hand woman's hair and shadow that appears to foretell these later developments.