Alfred Sisley

In the autumn of 1877 Sisley left Marly-le-Roi and moved to Sèvres, just west of Paris. The new environment offered a variety of subjects to the artist – he found inspiration in several areas in the vicinity of Sèvres, including Chaville, Meudon and Louveciennes. During this time, he was particularly interested in depicting winter scenes, fascinated by the evanescent quality of snow. In contrast to Renoir, who depicted the countryside only in lush green colours and bathed in sunlight, Sisley took great pleasure in depicting winter scenes, and capturing the unique light of short winter days, and the effect of snow on the landscape. In his winter scenes Sisley discovered a whole new palette of icy blue and purple tones, evoking an atmosphere of stillness and tranquillity. In the present work, they are combined with the orange glow on the houses, reflected on the snow in subtle brushstrokes, creating a somewhat mysterious mood of a winter sunset.

Discussing Sisley’s winter landscapes executed in the late 1870s, Richard Shone wrote: "Sisley painted snow in all its permutations – from the tentative first fall to the heavy, silencing blanket of deep winter, from the stale snow churned on a main road to melting slush in weak sunshine. Where Monet is the master of the débâcle, of the gliding ice-floe and desolated landscape, Sisley shows villages and gardens wrapped in inviolable silence, branches laden, skies thick with a further fall. His perfect sense of tone in the 1870s is nowhere better seen than in some of these grey-blues and wintry pinks, against sharp blue, pure white and malachite green. The silhouetting of tree trunks, lone figures and receding fences give to such scenes their oriental delicacy" (R. Shone, Sisley, London, 1992, p. 96).