Lot Essay
During the last decade of his life, Pissarro began to reinvestigate places associated with Impressionism, such as Berneval, Varengeville and Moret-sur-Loing. Le jardin de l'htel Berneval is from a series of at least seven canvases completed by Pissarro during the summer of 1900 in Berneval. On 11 July 1900, he wrote to his son Lucien: "Here I am at Berneval, a pretty little watering place an hour's drive from Dieppe. For the present I am staying at the hotel. The place is smaller than Varengeville, but it is a real nest surrounded by trees and slopes and with a pretty beach."
Turning away from his experiments with Pointillism, Pissarro revisits in canvases like the present one the blended brushwork and receding perspective that distinguishes his work of the 1870s. The curve of the garden path and the undulating line of the cliffs lead us through the canvas. However, the small, regular dabs of paint used in the foreground of the garden are a recognizable reminder of the Neo-Impressionist technique used by the artist in 1885-1890.
Turning away from his experiments with Pointillism, Pissarro revisits in canvases like the present one the blended brushwork and receding perspective that distinguishes his work of the 1870s. The curve of the garden path and the undulating line of the cliffs lead us through the canvas. However, the small, regular dabs of paint used in the foreground of the garden are a recognizable reminder of the Neo-Impressionist technique used by the artist in 1885-1890.