Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley had much in common, yet were also very different. They were the two ‘purest’ landscape painters of the core French Impressionists, and over the last few weeks I have, in alternate articles, stepped through their careers with a small selection of their paintings. This final article in the series brings together just the cream of their work, interleaved for comparison. I hope that it you find it brings new insights.
Pissarro’s landscapes followed a long tradition from Valenciennes, through Daubigny and Corot, both of whom taught him, as shown in his early masterpiece The Marne at Chennevières from 1864.
Sisley came more directly to Impressionism, although never attracted to the cityscapes of Paris. On the occasions that he did paint in the city, he chose vistas which appeared more rural, like this View of Montmartre from the Cité des Fleurs, which he painted in 1869. At that time, the Sisley family was living in the Cité des Fleurs, close to his viewpoint of the hill of Montmartre.
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 was a turning point for both artists.
The Pissarros fled to London, where Camille painted this superb view of The Avenue, Sydenham in 1871. This was the first painting which he sold to the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, another refugee from the war whom he met in London.
For the Sisleys, the war stripped the last of Alfred’s allowance and plunged them into the poverty from which they never really recovered. It was only in 1874 that Sisley travelled to Britain, thanks to a patron, but his visit also proved formative, with innovative paintings such as Molesey Weir, Hampton Court (1874).
Pissarro painted together with Cézanne, most famously in this view of the Côte des Bœufs, Pontoise in 1877, for which Cézanne painted a matching view from the same location. The barren trees break up the red-roofed houses of the town beyond, superimposing their diruptive rhythm, a device Pissarro came to use frequently.
Rest along the Stream, Edge of the Wood (1878) must be one of Sisley’s finest paintings, and one of the great landscapes of the century. It features multiple stands of trees, each of a different species, and each depicted with remarkable skill. The lines of its trees, stream, and the gash of sky all lead the eye to the distant bridge, and the figure of a woman, her back against the foot of one of the birches in the foreground.
Pissarro moved to Éragny, where he started to paint extensive series of the neighbouring countryside, including this very familiar view of the fine spire of the Church and Manor-House at Éragny (1884).
In his Willows on the Banks of the Orvanne from 1883, Sisley uses colours which reverse the transition normally seen in aerial perspective, and despite their dense branches, the painting maintains its planes and doesn’t dissolve into confusion.
During the 1880s, Pissarro’s brushwork became more staccato, until he became overtly Divisionist in paintings such as Apple Picking, Éragny which was largely completed in the autumn of 1887. One of the canonical works of Neo-Impressionism, it was exhibited to favourable reviews at the Cercle de XX in Brussels in 1889.
Sisley kept to his Impressionist style, though. The Bend on the Loing at Moret from 1886 brings together the elements of many of his paintings: the all-important sky, a huge stand of poplars on the far bank, a barge with the town behind, and that marvellously broken water.
Pissarro’s style slowly returned from Neo-Impressionism, as seen in this bank of locally dense fog at the edge of a wood near Éragny, in Meadow at Éragny with Cows, Fog, Sunset.
Meanwhile Sisley ploughed his Impressionist furrow around the town of Moret-sur-Loing, as seen in The Bridge at Moret, Morning Effect from 1891. He maintains his long-standing emphasis on the sky, which occupies most of the canvas and sets both time and mood. This is one of Sisley’s late series, which concentrated on this town and its church.
Pissarro also took to painting series late in his career, but these weren’t rural. Because of chronic problems with his eyes, he mainly painted from behind windows, in cities like Rouen, and most of all Paris. Boulevard Montmartre, Spring Morning (1897) is composed primarily of buildings and streets, a plethora of figures, and countless carriages to move those people around – the ingredients for so many of these late paintings.
Shortly before Sisley’s terminal illness, he travelled with his longstanding partner to South Wales, where he painted his swan song. Lady’s Cove, West Side, Wales (1897) shows a small stretch of sandy beach near where they stayed in Langland Bay.
Pissarro’s final years were mainly spent painting urban crowds, here on the famous Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris, just a year before his death.
Pissarro and Sisley were without doubt two of the greatest landscape painters of the nineteenth century, alongside the likes of Corot. While Pissarro’s style and motifs changed constantly during his long and highly productive career, Sisley stuck doggedly to his Impressionist beliefs. Without either of them, art would be much the poorer, and we should celebrate their differences.
Brettell RR (1990) Pissarro and Pontoise, Yale UP and Guild. ISBN 978 0 300 04336 5.
Pissarro J (1993) Pissarro, Pavilion Books and Harry N Abrams. ISBN 1 85793 124 6.
Pissarro J and Snollaerts CD-R (2005) Pissarro. Critical Catalogue of Paintings, 3 vols, Wildenstein Institute and Skira. ISBN 88 7624 525 1.
Rothkopf K ed (2006) Pissarro. Creating the Impressionist Landscape, Philip Wilson, London. ISBN 0 85667 630 6.
Shone R (1992, revisions 2008) Sisley, Phaidon. ISBN 978 0 7148 3892 2.
Stevens MA (1992) Alfred Sisley, Yale UP. ISBN 0 300 05244 8.
Stevens MA (2017) Alfred Sisley, Impressionist Master, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 21557 1.