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Impressionist & Modern Art
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3210*
CAMILLE PISSARRO(Charlotte Amalie 1830 - 1903 Paris)
Paysage avec meules, Osny. 1883.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated lower right:
C. Pissarro / 1883.
46 x 55 cm.
Provenance:
- Bernheim-Jeune.
- Mme. Bérend.
- Durand-Ruel, (bought from Bérend 2 Apr.
1912).
- Mme. Belval (bought fromDurand Ruel 8
Feb. 1941).
- Mr. and Mrs. S. Samuels (c. 1954).
- Sotheby’s London, 2 Apr. 1979, no. 26
(col. Ill.).
- Private collecton, New York (acquired at
the above auction).
Exhibitions:
- Basel 1953, Tableaux français: Bonnard,
Degas, Gaugin, Matisse, Monet, Picasso,
Redon, Soutine, Utrillo, Vlaminck und
andere, Galerie Château d’Art, Beyeler,
10.3.-11.4.1954, no. 14.
- London 1954, Three Generations of Pis-
sarros, O’Hana Gallery, 22.4.-15.5.1954,
no. 7. (with label on the reverse).
Literature:
- Pissarro, Joachim/Durand-Ruel Snolla-
erts, Claire: Pissarro. Catalogue critique
des peintures, Paris 2005, vol II, p. 478,
cat.no. 718 (with col. ill.).
- Pissarro, Ludovic Rodo/Venturi, Lionello:
Camille Pissarro. Son art – Son oeuvre.
Paris 1939, no. 589.
This lovely Paysage avec meules is an
impressive example of Pissarro’s develop-
ment in the early 1880s. At this time, the
Impressionists were taking a new direc-
tion. While Renoir and Monet moved to the
South of France, Camille Pissarro remained
in the Paris region, renting a house in Osny,
near Pontoise, with the aim of drawing
inspiration from the surrounding count-
ryside. In 1883 Gauguin came to visit, and
the two began painting together. So, the
paths of two artists with quite different life
situations were to cross: Gauguin, born
in the centre of Paris, dreamt of going far
away, to the most remote islands possible.
Pissarro, who was born on such an island, a
Danish colony in the Caribbean, felt most
at home when he was close to a city. He
concentrated on themes in the area of the
Ile-de-France near Paris, and, unlike his
artist friends, had no desire to visit faraway
lands.
The present work was made in late sum-
mer, shortly before Pissarro travelled to
Rouen for the first time. Pissarro wrote to
his son Lucien in London, telling him how
his exhibition at Durand-Ruel in Paris in
May had fared. The critics were divided.
Pissarro, as ever, showed himself some-
what disappointed. Impressionism and
the early forays into Pointillism still met
with considerable incomprehension. Only
some time later was the great meaning
and aesthetic importance of this stylistic
innovation truly recognised.
Haystacks are today considered one of the
most important motifs of Impressionism.
The story of their depiction in painting
starts much earlier, however. One of the
great models for Pissarro, the Realist pain-
ter Jean-François Millet, featured them in
his works, albeit in the background, as in for
example his famous work Les Glaneuses
(The Gleaners) from 1857, oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris. They were, howe-
ver, consciously placed within the scene,
as Pissarro was also to do later. They
embody the theme of the work of the rural
population; an aspect which played a great
role for Pissarro. In 1872, Pissarro painted
four large horizontal format works of the
four seasons for the banker Achille Arosa.
For the depiction of summer, he chose
an idyllic landscape with a large number
of haystacks. Henceforth, he increasingly
sought out such motifs to represent that
season. Often he depicted themwith
peasant men and women at work. Here
however, he decided, as in the series the
four seasons, to show a landscape without
figures. The solitary haystacks are therefo-
re more effective as symbols of the labour
involved in making them, and yet exude a
great sense of peace in the summer light.
Thus a simple, superbly composed lands-
cape becomes a symbol of the labour and
hope of man – a homage to the harvest.
Such scenes painted in the Impressionist
or Pointillist styles create the effect of ha-
ving encapsulated the atmosphere. So, as
viewers of this landscape, we apprehend
directly the shimmering summer heat.
Thus, scenes of haystacks appeared in
the oeuvre of the Impressionist master
long before the famous series by Claude
Monet, which was painted from 1890. Such
compositions produce an incomparably
powerful effect. No other series can bring
together subject, technique and aesthetic
and cause them to interconnect in such
a way.
CHF 800 000 / 1 400 000
(€ 740 740 / 1 296 300)