Lot Essay
In the spring of 1884 Pissarro and his family left Osny and settled in Eragny-sur-Apte, a small village in Normandy near Gisors. He lived there for almost twenty years until his death in 1903, longer than he had in any other location. The countryside surrounding Eragny, devoid of industry and even of modernized farming techniques, provided the artist with the perfect setting in which to pursue one of his favorite themes: the depiction of rural life. As Richard Brettell has noted:
Among the major Impressionists, Camille Pissarro was the pre-eminent painter od rural life... while Monet and Sisley transcribed landscapes that are fundamentally suburban, Pissarro tended, more often than not, to concentrate on the traditional villages, fields and market gardens, which were largely untouched by the world of machines and urban transactions. (R. Brettell, "Camille Pissarro and Urban View Paintings,"The Impressionist and the City, London, 1992, p. XV)
Discussing the landscapes which Pissarro executd during this last decade or so of his life, Christopher Lloyd and Anne Distel have written:
[These works are] in many ways a summation, for the refinement of compositional procedures and an advance in technique seem to have allowed Pissarro to paint with a greater freedom and confidence... The rural paintings dating from the 1890s retain a luminosity of texture that is derived from the close working of the surfaces of his neo-impressionist paintings. There is an intensity about these paintings representing Eragny-sur-Epte that enriches them with an almost visionary quality... The palette in these pictures of pure landscape, where the surface is encrusted with paint, attesting the superb eye that Pissarro had developed for the exact rendering of the effects of nature. (C. Lloyd and A. Distel, exh. cat., Camille Pissarro, Hayward Gallery, London, 1981, p. 134)
Among the major Impressionists, Camille Pissarro was the pre-eminent painter od rural life... while Monet and Sisley transcribed landscapes that are fundamentally suburban, Pissarro tended, more often than not, to concentrate on the traditional villages, fields and market gardens, which were largely untouched by the world of machines and urban transactions. (R. Brettell, "Camille Pissarro and Urban View Paintings,"The Impressionist and the City, London, 1992, p. XV)
Discussing the landscapes which Pissarro executd during this last decade or so of his life, Christopher Lloyd and Anne Distel have written:
[These works are] in many ways a summation, for the refinement of compositional procedures and an advance in technique seem to have allowed Pissarro to paint with a greater freedom and confidence... The rural paintings dating from the 1890s retain a luminosity of texture that is derived from the close working of the surfaces of his neo-impressionist paintings. There is an intensity about these paintings representing Eragny-sur-Epte that enriches them with an almost visionary quality... The palette in these pictures of pure landscape, where the surface is encrusted with paint, attesting the superb eye that Pissarro had developed for the exact rendering of the effects of nature. (C. Lloyd and A. Distel, exh. cat., Camille Pissarro, Hayward Gallery, London, 1981, p. 134)