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Lot Essay
Painted in 1892, Camille Pissarro's Paysage avec maisons et mur de clôture, givre et brume, Eragny perfectly demonstrates the artist's ability to take a seemingly understated, essentially simple motif and imbue it with the freshness and sensation that lay at the heart of Impressionism. This picture's rich surface features darting, zig-zagging brushstrokes that capture the appearance of the leafless trees of this winter landscape at Eragny in such a way that they are filled with dazzling vitality. Combined with the muted colors of this frozen scene, these brushstrokes allow Pissarro to create a picture that balances on the brink of a rhythmic abstraction, revealing the foundation of his affinity with the Neo-Impressionists. This is clear in the build-up of paint in the ground area in particular, where closer inspection reveals a kaleidoscopic wealth of different colors that all combine to create a harmonious effect. The entire muted winter palette is relieved by this, and also by the red of the brick houses, while the spectral trees in the background add to the sense of rhythmic progression that underpins this composition, with its verticals and its strong horizontals. Paysage avec maisons et mur de clôture, givre et brume, Eragny shows a similar view to another painting from circa 1890, a more sketch-like impression of the same view painted in a vertical format, revealing his long-standing fascination with this subject.
It is a reflection of the quality of the present work that it featured in Pissarro's second one-man show, held at Galerie Durand-Ruel the year after it was painted. This exhibition received several favorable reviews, for instance from Gustave Geffroy, and later, Georges de Bellio.
Paysage avec maisons et mur de clôture was sold at an auction held in 1895 in aid of the artist Auguste Lauzet who during the year that this picture was painted had etched illustrations of some of Pissarro's works for the publication of L'art Impressionniste d'après la collection de Paul Durand-Ruel; it was Durand-Ruel who purchased this picture, alongside twelve others, at the auction, as was recorded in a note attached to letter 872 in Pissarro's correspondence.
It is a reflection of the quality of the present work that it featured in Pissarro's second one-man show, held at Galerie Durand-Ruel the year after it was painted. This exhibition received several favorable reviews, for instance from Gustave Geffroy, and later, Georges de Bellio.
Paysage avec maisons et mur de clôture was sold at an auction held in 1895 in aid of the artist Auguste Lauzet who during the year that this picture was painted had etched illustrations of some of Pissarro's works for the publication of L'art Impressionniste d'après la collection de Paul Durand-Ruel; it was Durand-Ruel who purchased this picture, alongside twelve others, at the auction, as was recorded in a note attached to letter 872 in Pissarro's correspondence.