Alfred Sisley 

Alfred Sisley 1839 – 1899, was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air (i.e., outdoors). He deviated into figure painting only rarely. Among the Impressionists, Sisley has been overshadowed by Monet, whose work his resembles in style and subject matter, although Sisley's effects are more subdued. Described by art historian Robert Rosenblum as having "almost a generic character, an impersonal textbook idea of a perfect Impressionist painting", his work strongly invokes atmosphere, and his skies are always impressive. He concentrated on landscape more consistently than any other Impressionist painter.

QUESTIONS of CONCERN:

1. What is the most dominant part of this painting and why?

2. What time of day is it and what is the evidence?

3. Is this a city scape or landscape? What is the evidence?

4. Is this painting balanced visually? Why or why not?

In October 1877, Alfred Sisley moved to the town of Sèvres, just a few miles southwest of Paris, where he would remain for the next two years. Like Monet’s Argenteuil, Sèvres was far enough from the city to allow Sisley to paint rural landscapes, but close enough for him to stay in touch with friends and colleagues in Paris. His time in Sèvres proved to be a crucial transitional point in his career, as he shifted from the softer painting style of his earlier career to the more agitated brushwork that would define his later work. Sisley painted The Quays of the Seine during Snow Season not long after he arrived in Sèvres. Like his friend Monet, he struggled in the late 1870s (Sisley would be evicted from his house in Sèvres by March 1879), finding collectors for his paintings scarce and a reliable income non-existent. In the face of such circumstances, Sisley identified with the poor and was increasingly drawn to working sections of the Seine, where barges line the water’s edge rather than pleasure boats. In the Dixon painting, an idle laborer with his hands shoved into his pockets walks along a tall fence on a deserted quay. The Pont de Sèvres, spanning the river, is in the background.

Sisley never wavered from his Impressionist style, but he struggled to find buyers for his paintings. He was evicted from his house in Sèvres in 1877, probably the same year he painted The Seine at Billancourt. The working character of the river Seine was one of Sisley’s favorite subjects, and as in the above painting, he typically painted it with his busy, even frenetic brushwork.

Sisley died broke. His surviving family lived off of a large auction of his paintings that Claude Monet produced. Monet bought most of his paintings at the auction to ensure that Sisley’s family did not starve.

Assignment: Drag the assignment below to your desktop, print it out, and add color pencil to make this image come alive. When you are finished, make a photo with your cell phone and send it to ihs.b@yahoo.com.