Alfred Sisley - Kornfeld bei Argenteuil - 1873

 

From the very beginning, Sisley was among the group of painters, including Pissarro, Cézanne, Renoir, and others, who founded the 'Association of Impressionists' in 1873. In that same year, he created his 'Cornfield near Argenteuil,' a place on the Seine that was a popular destination for these artists. The landscape is composed of a triad of colors: yellow, blue, and green. A field of young plants, which slopes steeply into the depth of the picture plane, takes up the width of the horizontal format. It is flanked by a bright yellow cornfield. Behind this, a dark group of trees, resembling a village church on a hill, completes the composition. The depth of the centrally perspectival painting contrasts with the impasto brushwork, which emphasizes the flatness of the painting surface. In 1876, the poet Mallarmé wrote about Sisley: 'He captures the fleeting moments of the day, he observes a cloud and paints as it passes by. On his canvas, you can still feel the breath of air, and the leaves move slightly in the wind.'"

 Source: Hamburger Kunsthalle