Alfred Sisley (1839-99) was an interesting Impressionist painter, who sadly did not achieve much recognition or success in his lifetime. Though he had British citizenship, he spent much of his time in France painting. My favorite Sisley painting is this one, done in France…
Notice the concentration on depicting the church in varying light, showing the effect of change of light on the color of something.
At the Art Institute the following Sisley painting was on display…
Another less well known Impressionist painter that I’m a fan of is Camille Pissaro (1830-1903). One of the things that shocked and horrified the art critics of the era is that an artist would paint very mundane or ordinary objects or scenes. They thought you needed to have a religious or mythological or historical subject, or at least paint a portrait of someone famous! The Impressionists deliberately avoided all that, finding beauty in the ordinary and in nature. Here for example is Pissaro’s lovely rendering of haymaking….
Pissaro was fond of painting peasant women at work or at home…
Notice the technique of using little dabs of paint almost in a pointilist fashion to make this delicate scene of a peasant woman bathing her feet…
From this same time frame is Georges Seurat (1859-91) who is actually known as a post-Impressionist, and you can clear see the difference in approach and style in his famous Sunday Afternoon painting which is housed at the Art Institute….
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