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Lot Essay
Executed in the autumn of 1901, Camille Pissarro’s Après la pluie, automne, Éragny depicts the orchards and rolling hills of the Epte valley which extended westward from the artist’s home in Éragny-sur-Epte. Pissarro and his family had moved to the small village of Éragny in 1884 and he found himself enamoured with the serene, picturesque countryside of these new surroundings. Writing to his son Lucien in March of that year, Pissarro said, ‘Yes, we are decided on Eragny-sur-Epte. The house is superb and not expensive: a thousand francs, with garden and field. It is two hours from Paris and I find the countryside beautiful in a different way to Compigne… the meadows are green with thin silhouettes, but Gisors is superb and that is just the beginning!’ (Letter from C. Pissarro to L. Pissarro, 1 March 1884, reproduced in J. Bailly-Herzberg, Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, Paris, 2003, vol. I, p. 291).
Over the course of the next two decades, the fields adjacent to this home would present Pissarro with a wellspring of inspiration; he once described the view as ‘a marvel compared to everything else I see’ (C. Pissarro, quoted in J. Pissarro & C. Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings, vol. I, Paris, 2005, p. 89). He devoted an ambitious series of paintings to this bucolic idyll, and contemplating the same scenes over such a protracted period of time gave Pissarro the space to explore the subtle shifts that take place within the landscape. He cast his eye towards the, at times, dramatic transformations that came with the changing seasons, from spring’s first blush of blossoms, to billows of clouds, and soft, summer breezes. Après la pluie, automne, Éragny registers the effects of an autumnal storm and the slow, inevitable march towards winter; to revel in the climatic effects, Pissarro adopted an elevated vantagepoint so as to capture all the glories the countryside had to offer. The trees, though mostly full and lush, have begun to be touched by red and gold, heralding the end of the ‘fat green monotony’ of summer (C. Pissarro, quoted in R. Thomson, Camille Pissarro: Impressionism, Landscape and Rural Labour, London, 1990, p. 10). In a letter to his gallery Bernheim-Jeune, written shortly after the present composition was devised, the artist expressed his pleasure at the range of colours the autumn foliage presented that year: ‘The apple trees decked in the richest colours, from amaranth to the most exalted reds! … The trees […] are decked in dead leaves which, in the sunlight, glitter like bouquets of flowers. The blooms of autumn are different from those of spring, which only has pink and white flowers’ (C. Pissarro, unpublished letter to Bernheim-Jeune, 20 November 1901, quoted in op. cit., pp. 303-304).
Using an array of overlapping brushstrokes and feathery marks, Après la pluie, automne, Éragny chronicles Pissarro's return to Impressionism. He had, a number of years earlier, renounced his associated with the Neo-Impressionistic techniques with which he had once experimented. Although initially excited about Divisionism, as espoused by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, Pissarro came to doubt its expressive potential, writing to Lucien in September 1888: ‘How can one combine the purity and simplicity of the dot with the fullness, suppleness, liberty, spontaneity and freshness of sensation postulated by our impressionist art?’ (C. Pissarro, quoted in C. Duvivier & C. Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: Le Premier des Impressionistes/The First Among the Impressionists, exh. cat., Paris, 2017, p. 126). Following Seurat’s death in 1891, he sought to recapture such sensations, becoming freer and looser in his approach in an effort to reclaim an immediacy in his responses to the ever-changing conditions of a particular place. He again immersed himself wholly in the natural world, exploring the effects and ephemerality of light and the role of time within this well-trodden stretch of land. Such considerations are underscored by the precision with which Pissarro titled the paintings of this period, calling attention to their seasonal and temporal conditions that make the world singular and unique. When asked in 1900 by a young Henri Matisse what makes an Impressionist and Impressionist, Pissarro responded, ‘An Impressionist is a painter who never makes the same painting twice’ (C. Pissarro, quoted in R. Shikes & P. Harper, Pissarro: His Life and Work, New York, 1980, p. 311).
Over the course of the next two decades, the fields adjacent to this home would present Pissarro with a wellspring of inspiration; he once described the view as ‘a marvel compared to everything else I see’ (C. Pissarro, quoted in J. Pissarro & C. Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings, vol. I, Paris, 2005, p. 89). He devoted an ambitious series of paintings to this bucolic idyll, and contemplating the same scenes over such a protracted period of time gave Pissarro the space to explore the subtle shifts that take place within the landscape. He cast his eye towards the, at times, dramatic transformations that came with the changing seasons, from spring’s first blush of blossoms, to billows of clouds, and soft, summer breezes. Après la pluie, automne, Éragny registers the effects of an autumnal storm and the slow, inevitable march towards winter; to revel in the climatic effects, Pissarro adopted an elevated vantagepoint so as to capture all the glories the countryside had to offer. The trees, though mostly full and lush, have begun to be touched by red and gold, heralding the end of the ‘fat green monotony’ of summer (C. Pissarro, quoted in R. Thomson, Camille Pissarro: Impressionism, Landscape and Rural Labour, London, 1990, p. 10). In a letter to his gallery Bernheim-Jeune, written shortly after the present composition was devised, the artist expressed his pleasure at the range of colours the autumn foliage presented that year: ‘The apple trees decked in the richest colours, from amaranth to the most exalted reds! … The trees […] are decked in dead leaves which, in the sunlight, glitter like bouquets of flowers. The blooms of autumn are different from those of spring, which only has pink and white flowers’ (C. Pissarro, unpublished letter to Bernheim-Jeune, 20 November 1901, quoted in op. cit., pp. 303-304).
Using an array of overlapping brushstrokes and feathery marks, Après la pluie, automne, Éragny chronicles Pissarro's return to Impressionism. He had, a number of years earlier, renounced his associated with the Neo-Impressionistic techniques with which he had once experimented. Although initially excited about Divisionism, as espoused by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, Pissarro came to doubt its expressive potential, writing to Lucien in September 1888: ‘How can one combine the purity and simplicity of the dot with the fullness, suppleness, liberty, spontaneity and freshness of sensation postulated by our impressionist art?’ (C. Pissarro, quoted in C. Duvivier & C. Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: Le Premier des Impressionistes/The First Among the Impressionists, exh. cat., Paris, 2017, p. 126). Following Seurat’s death in 1891, he sought to recapture such sensations, becoming freer and looser in his approach in an effort to reclaim an immediacy in his responses to the ever-changing conditions of a particular place. He again immersed himself wholly in the natural world, exploring the effects and ephemerality of light and the role of time within this well-trodden stretch of land. Such considerations are underscored by the precision with which Pissarro titled the paintings of this period, calling attention to their seasonal and temporal conditions that make the world singular and unique. When asked in 1900 by a young Henri Matisse what makes an Impressionist and Impressionist, Pissarro responded, ‘An Impressionist is a painter who never makes the same painting twice’ (C. Pissarro, quoted in R. Shikes & P. Harper, Pissarro: His Life and Work, New York, 1980, p. 311).