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Lot Essay
When Pissarro painted Gardeuse d’oies au bord de l'Epte in 1889, he had been spending time with the Neo-Impressionist masters Georges Seurat and Paul Signac for several years and had begun experimenting with Divisionism. The Pointillist approach aroused the artist’s full and enthusiastic commitment, since he saw it as the natural progression of his art, the next stage in an artistic journey leading straight towards the three central values mentioned constantly in his correspondence: Unity, Harmony, and Freedom (J. Pissarro, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, Paris, 2005, vol. I, p. 62). As the art critic Octave Mirbeau wrote: “Harmony—that is the meaning of [Pissarro’s] work. And this harmony…without ever any discord, comes from the fact that he was one of the first to understand and innovate with that cornerstone of contemporary painting: light” (L’art dans les deux mondes, 10 January 1891).
The influence of the Neo-Impressionists is evident in Gardeuse d’oise au board de l’Epte in the minute brushstrokes of vivid contrasting colors. By layering tints, both warm and cool, Pissarro successfully created an atmospheric diffusion of glowing afternoon light throughout the landscape, conveying for the viewer a bucolic scene of peasant life. At the foreground, a woman leans gingerly on a small branch and directly behind her, another woman leans back on one elbow. Both seem at ease and unencumbered by the work of the day, gazing peacefully towards their idyllic surroundings. Unconcerned by the presence of the two women, five ducks wade playfully in the luminous water of the stream. The swift brushstrokes that compromise their bodies allow them to nearly disappear into the luminously reflective waters. In the background, disguised by the foliage behind them, cows graze contentedly in the lush green grass. Together, the women, ducks and cows form a compositional triangle reinforcing their perceived interconnected unity and harmony.
Ralph Shikes has written, “Pissarro’s vision is of men and women perfectly integrated into their natural environment. At the heart of these paintings is his wish to picture a world that was passing and needed preserving for the ideal society of the future” (“Pissarro’s Political Philosophy and his Art,” in C. Lloyd, ed., Studies on Camille Pissarro, London, 1986, p. 41).
Gardeuse d’oise au bord de l’Epte is a definitive illustration of the fact that Pissarro, more than any other Impressionist and probably more than any artist since Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet, understood the hard life of the peasantry, and celebrated its virtues without romanticizing their toil. Indeed, Pissarro envisioned his vocation as an artist as being analogous to the unrelenting routine of the peasant; there was the need to apply oneself through determination and discipline, to understand the rhythms of nature and to undertake each task in its proper time. Pissarro’s approach to creativity was not that of the isolated and brooding genius; instead he saw himself as a member of a community of like-minded individuals working towards a common goal.
The influence of the Neo-Impressionists is evident in Gardeuse d’oise au board de l’Epte in the minute brushstrokes of vivid contrasting colors. By layering tints, both warm and cool, Pissarro successfully created an atmospheric diffusion of glowing afternoon light throughout the landscape, conveying for the viewer a bucolic scene of peasant life. At the foreground, a woman leans gingerly on a small branch and directly behind her, another woman leans back on one elbow. Both seem at ease and unencumbered by the work of the day, gazing peacefully towards their idyllic surroundings. Unconcerned by the presence of the two women, five ducks wade playfully in the luminous water of the stream. The swift brushstrokes that compromise their bodies allow them to nearly disappear into the luminously reflective waters. In the background, disguised by the foliage behind them, cows graze contentedly in the lush green grass. Together, the women, ducks and cows form a compositional triangle reinforcing their perceived interconnected unity and harmony.
Ralph Shikes has written, “Pissarro’s vision is of men and women perfectly integrated into their natural environment. At the heart of these paintings is his wish to picture a world that was passing and needed preserving for the ideal society of the future” (“Pissarro’s Political Philosophy and his Art,” in C. Lloyd, ed., Studies on Camille Pissarro, London, 1986, p. 41).
Gardeuse d’oise au bord de l’Epte is a definitive illustration of the fact that Pissarro, more than any other Impressionist and probably more than any artist since Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet, understood the hard life of the peasantry, and celebrated its virtues without romanticizing their toil. Indeed, Pissarro envisioned his vocation as an artist as being analogous to the unrelenting routine of the peasant; there was the need to apply oneself through determination and discipline, to understand the rhythms of nature and to undertake each task in its proper time. Pissarro’s approach to creativity was not that of the isolated and brooding genius; instead he saw himself as a member of a community of like-minded individuals working towards a common goal.