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Lot Essay
This painting will be included in the new edition of the catalogue raisonné of Alfred Sisley by François Daulte now being prepared at Galerie Brame & Lorenceau by the Comité Alfred Sisley.
In the winter of 1874 Sisley and his family moved to Marly-le-Roi, close to Louveciennes. Sisley's works of these years rank among the masterpieces of Impressionist painting. His most famous group shows the Seine in flood; in these works Sisley took pains to reproduce both the effects of light upon the water and the extraordinary modifications that the flood caused in the landscape. Sisley also worked on snowscapes, depicting Marly as the seasons changed.
As a poet of the seasons, with an Englishman's passionate yet resigned interest in the weather, Sisley painted in all conditions. His investigative temperament seems to have known no bounds... There is hardly a seasonal moment from dawn to dusk that he did not attempt to capture (in Sisley, London, 1992, p. 100).
The present painting is one of five pictures of the town that Sisley painted in 1876, when he concentrated on the streetscape and the effects of light on daily activity. The artist wrote to his friend Adolphe Tavernier:
You see that I am an advocate of a diversity of treatment in the same picture. This is certainly not a generally held opinion, but I think I am right, especially when it is a question of rendering the effect of light. For although sunlight softens some parts of
the landscape, it highlights others, and these light effects which express themselves almost physically in nature should be rendered physically on the canvas. Objects should be painted with their own texture, moreover--and above all--they should be bathed in light just as they are in nature. That's what has to be achieved (quoted in ibid., p. 219).
In keeping with this philosophy, views of Marly like the present one closely represent the moment in which they were painted. Here, the sky, always the principal component in Sisley's pictures, is loaded with gray clouds which reflect on the colors of the street. This work is presumed by Daulte to have been painted in the spring of the year, before the floods, and to show the relatively weak light of an early spring day. Georges Rivière wrote to praise Sisley's work in the April 1877 issue of L'Impressionniste:
Each picture reveals the same style and finesse, the same dripping trees, its cobblestones damp with pools of water reflecting the sky--is full of charm (quoted in F. Daulte, "The Life and Work of Sisley," exh. cat., Sisley, exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 1966).
In the winter of 1874 Sisley and his family moved to Marly-le-Roi, close to Louveciennes. Sisley's works of these years rank among the masterpieces of Impressionist painting. His most famous group shows the Seine in flood; in these works Sisley took pains to reproduce both the effects of light upon the water and the extraordinary modifications that the flood caused in the landscape. Sisley also worked on snowscapes, depicting Marly as the seasons changed.
As a poet of the seasons, with an Englishman's passionate yet resigned interest in the weather, Sisley painted in all conditions. His investigative temperament seems to have known no bounds... There is hardly a seasonal moment from dawn to dusk that he did not attempt to capture (in Sisley, London, 1992, p. 100).
The present painting is one of five pictures of the town that Sisley painted in 1876, when he concentrated on the streetscape and the effects of light on daily activity. The artist wrote to his friend Adolphe Tavernier:
You see that I am an advocate of a diversity of treatment in the same picture. This is certainly not a generally held opinion, but I think I am right, especially when it is a question of rendering the effect of light. For although sunlight softens some parts of
the landscape, it highlights others, and these light effects which express themselves almost physically in nature should be rendered physically on the canvas. Objects should be painted with their own texture, moreover--and above all--they should be bathed in light just as they are in nature. That's what has to be achieved (quoted in ibid., p. 219).
In keeping with this philosophy, views of Marly like the present one closely represent the moment in which they were painted. Here, the sky, always the principal component in Sisley's pictures, is loaded with gray clouds which reflect on the colors of the street. This work is presumed by Daulte to have been painted in the spring of the year, before the floods, and to show the relatively weak light of an early spring day. Georges Rivière wrote to praise Sisley's work in the April 1877 issue of L'Impressionniste:
Each picture reveals the same style and finesse, the same dripping trees, its cobblestones damp with pools of water reflecting the sky--is full of charm (quoted in F. Daulte, "The Life and Work of Sisley," exh. cat., Sisley, exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 1966).