These early views are sombre in tone, but displayed a detailed construction and a taste for broad areas of sky and ample spaces.
In his still life painting , Heron with Wings Spread , Musee d'Orsay , his subtle harmonies of tone are apparent. Financial Crisis A crisis arose in , when the family business crashed because of the Franco-Prussian War. Sisley was immediately thrown onto his own resources, and forced to live off the proceeds of his art, a task for which he was wholly unprepared.
To reduce costs he moved to Louveciennes near Paris. Unlike other Impressionists, who could turn to portrait art to earn money, Sisley only painted landscapes. In addition, he worked to a fairly standard format characterized by the receding perspective of a road or lane - see, for instance, Rue de la Machine, Louveciennes , Musee d'Orsay or Louveciennes, the Sevres Road , Musee d'Orsay - and recording the effect of the changing seasons in the same place, as in Louveciennes in Autumn , Private Collection and Louveciennes in Winter , Private Collection.
Impressionist Exhibitions At the first Impressionist Exhibition he exhibited five landscapes. He painted boat-races, Regatta at Molesey , Musee d'Orsay , in which the movement and animation are unusual for his compositions, and also numerous views of the countryside, as in Hampton Court Bridge , Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne. For more details, see: Impressionist Exhibitions, Paris. From Louveciennes he moved to Marly, where he painted views of the horse-pond in front of his house and became the chronicler of the village, as in the Forge at Marly , Musee d'Orsay , an interior scene, unusual in his work, or Floods at Port-Marly , Musee d'Orsay shown at the second Impressionist Exhibition together with seven other canvases.
In he took part in the third Impressionist Exhibition with 17 paintings, but met with little success and did not exhibit for some years thereafter.
He moved to Sevres in , but soon returned to Louveciennes where he painted out of doors a great deal, focusing on the changing sky. Always well balanced, these sensitive works show a light, delicate handling: see, in particular Misty Morning , Musee d'Orsay and Snow at Louveciennes , Musee d'Orsay. Moret-sur-Loing After Sisley went to live near Moret-sur-Loing, then in Moret itself, becoming more and more isolated. Under Monet's influence he modified his technique, broadening his brushstroke and working his surfaces more heavily.
See also Impressionist Painting Developments. A one-man exhibition at Durand-Ruel's gallery in and another at Georges Petit's in did not bring Sisley much success, and he continued to live in very straightened circumstances. Sisley stopped painting in , due to the onset of cancer, and died two years later in Paris at the age of 59, just a few short months after the death of his wife. He died in poverty: it was only after his death that his reputation as an artist began to grow.
Pure Impressionism. Like the English landscape artist John Constable, Sisley only liked to paint places he knew well, and he particularly liked the Seine and Thames valley areas. His works - like those of Monet and Camille Pissarro - are what art historians would call 'pure' Impressionism. From his very beginnings, Sisley, just as Pissarro , devotes himself primarily to landscape painting and to alive representations of village streets or Parisian rivers.
He frequently meets Monet and Renoir to work with them. An art critic writes about him, on the year of his death : "It is Corot who impresses him , the clear and silver plated Corot, at the same time light and solid, always broad, deep, infinite, Corot dreamer, calm and precise He will be admitted to the Official Salon in , and His paintings show his keen interest for colored impressions of trees and buildings, and for the changing effects of light and clouds above the landscape In the catalogue of the sale of Sisley's Workshop organized to the benefit of his children after his death, one can read under the feather of this same critic : " Auguste Renoir will compose of them in , a famous painting entitled " The engaged couple " known as " Alfred Sisley and his wife ".
The franco-prussian war of will cause the ruin of his family , and Sisley, for the rest of his life, will no longer be a young man of good social standing, but an artist having to live with difficulty of his painting. The civil war "La Commune de Paris" in makes him find refuge in London, where he meets the art dealer Durand-Ruel, who had opened a gallery to exhibit French artists. He returns to France, in Louveciennes little after the events.
Now ruined, he is obliged to definitively leave Paris and Louveciennes in to settle opposite the Feeding at Marly-le-Roi. In he is one of the 31 exhibitors of the first show of the Impressionists group, and will then expose at the following ones, in and , without however gaining sympathy there, nor enthusiasm from critics. He paints then primarily in Argenteuil , Marly and Bougival : " Boats at Bougival lock" , "Snow in Louveciennes" , "The flood at Port-Marly" , are among his most outstanding works of that time.
The harmonious balance of muted dark and light colors allows the eye to move quickly across the canvas, giving the illusion of movement. Although it is unknown if Caillebotte was aware of Sisley's painting, the two artists chose similar subject matter and viewpoints to depict the landscape. The two works differ in the way the artists chose to capture contemporary life. Caillebotte's painting focuses on the figures, celebrating modernity through the fashion of the period. In comparison, Sisley's painting focuses on the architecture, only showing a vague interest in the people strolling along the bridge.
Sisley celebrates modernity, but through the detailed innovative materials of the bridge. Although there is a lack of obvious narrative, this painting is particularly informative about the context of the time.
Footbridge at Argenteuil depicts the newly emerging middle class vacationing in the suburbs outside of Paris. This new access to leisure became more common with the development of industry and the newly constructed railroad along the Seine River. Impressionist artists began capturing this new subject matter, creating genres that were distinct from the limitations of the Academy.
This painting is emblematic of Alfred Sisley's oeuvre , concentrating on the artist's perception of the natural world. The application of quick, feathery brushstrokes captures the ephemeral effects of light on a surface. This can be seen with the subtle nuances of color on the river that reflect the sky, clouds, and grassy knoll.
The perspective from which the artist chose to paint the bridge gives a sense of the structure's monumental scale. Additionally, Sisley included figures to provide a sense of scale to convey the bridge's size. While the Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne is a study of nature, it also illustrates France's desire to be politically and industrially progressive following the loss of the Franco-Prussian war.
The bridge was reconstructed after the war and represents the restoration of France at the end of the 19 th century. The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne then represents the rhetoric of hope of regeneration. This painting was one of three works that Durand-Ruel purchased from Sisley. It was included in an album of three hundred of his most beautiful prints. The album was created with the intention to publish; yet this project was never realized. Sisley painted this subject several times while living in Les Sablons.
The painting's lack of shadows and intense, warm colors suggest that it is a summer afternoon. Sisley methodically breaks the canvas into four horizontal planes, the grassy knoll, the river, the beach, and the sky. He paints the grassy knoll with curving diagonal brushstrokes, which flows seamlessly into the river, distinguished by short horizontal brushstrokes.
The flat cream color of the beach divides the sand from the river with long horizontal painterly lines. Sisley used the sky to create a harmonious balance of color, unifying the composition. The whites, reds, purples and blues making up the clouds are reflected into the water. Additionally, the red roof tops of the beachfront homes are reflected in the river. This color scheme is also employed in the boats and the Paris-Lyons railway viaduct in the distance.
The deep hues, intense tones and systematic dabs of paint suggest that Sisley was aware of the Neo-Impressionist movement, particularly Seurat's method of pointillism. Indeed, there is an almost pointillist quality to this work. While Sisley's failing health and financial difficulties prevented him from traveling during this time, he may have taken short trips to Paris to see Seurat's paintings. Although Sisley was one of the only Impressionist members to continue to illustrate the original philosophy of the Impressionist style, this painting suggests that he did experiment with other modern ideas.
This work represents an open field of grain outlined by poplar trees. The Four haystacks create a diagonal line through the canvas, giving depth to the composition as they recede into the background. The massive landscape includes a peasant working in the field to illustrate the monumental scale of the haystacks.
Poplar trees frame the background, additionally emphasizing the vastness of nature. Sisley captures the light reflecting off of the grain with deep oranges and reds through the thick layering of paint. His brushstrokes are almost whimsical, giving the grain texture. Haystacks at Moret, Morning represents France as a fertile, agrarian country, bountiful in its resources.
0コメント