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Lot Essay
In the present work, Sisley depicts the town of Saint Cloud far in the distance from the banks of the river Seine. Saint Cloud was particularly known for its 980 acre park, a source of inspiration for artists such as Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and its proximity to Sèvres, a Parisian suburb where Sisley settled in February 1877, resulted in the artist revisiting it as a theme in his oeuvre many times towards the end of that decade. The Sèvres years were financially fraught for Sisley and his family. In 1879, he chose not to exhibit with the Impressionists but rather turned to the Salon in the hope of achieving some financial success, but was once more rejected. Nonetheless these years were marked by significant stylistic development in the painter's work. He achieved great creative diversification in style and subject matter through the replacement of the short, regular brushstrokes and clearly modulated tones typical of his early 1870s landscapes with a more varied range of brushstrokes and a greater sophistication in the application of colour. The resulting intricately worked and layered textures are evident in the present work.
As Christopher Lloyd has written: "The second half of the 1870s saw a considerable change in Sisley's style. The compositions after 1876 tended to become more complex, with less emphasis on recession and balance. Instead, the overlaying of the various parts of a composition and the creation of an interlocking pattern began to absorb his attention. At the same time, a greater variety enters Sisley's technique. The short soft-edged square brushstrokes of earlier years were replaced by heavily worked, more intricate textures comprising a large range of brushstrokes. The priming on the canvas continued to play a significant role, but towards the end of the decade Sisley was more concerned with building up the layers of paint on the surface. Concomitant with these richly textured surfaces was a greater sophistication in the application of colour. The tonal qualities of the paintings of the early 1870s accorded well with Sisley's compositional principles of those years, but now the greater intensity and wider range of colour, as in the work of Monet and Renoir, matched the more agitated character of the brushwork. It is fair to describe the years 1875-1879 as transitional...as Sisley was adjusting his style and reflecting on the subject matter of his painting in a highly creative way. The results of this adjustment were to be given full expression during the 1880s and 1890s. In a very real sense, Sisley was at a turning point during the years at Marly and Sèvres" (in Alfred Sisley, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1992, pp. 150-151).
As Christopher Lloyd has written: "The second half of the 1870s saw a considerable change in Sisley's style. The compositions after 1876 tended to become more complex, with less emphasis on recession and balance. Instead, the overlaying of the various parts of a composition and the creation of an interlocking pattern began to absorb his attention. At the same time, a greater variety enters Sisley's technique. The short soft-edged square brushstrokes of earlier years were replaced by heavily worked, more intricate textures comprising a large range of brushstrokes. The priming on the canvas continued to play a significant role, but towards the end of the decade Sisley was more concerned with building up the layers of paint on the surface. Concomitant with these richly textured surfaces was a greater sophistication in the application of colour. The tonal qualities of the paintings of the early 1870s accorded well with Sisley's compositional principles of those years, but now the greater intensity and wider range of colour, as in the work of Monet and Renoir, matched the more agitated character of the brushwork. It is fair to describe the years 1875-1879 as transitional...as Sisley was adjusting his style and reflecting on the subject matter of his painting in a highly creative way. The results of this adjustment were to be given full expression during the 1880s and 1890s. In a very real sense, Sisley was at a turning point during the years at Marly and Sèvres" (in Alfred Sisley, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1992, pp. 150-151).