A quintessential example of Alfred Sisley’s mature Impressionism, Le chemin de Saint-Mammès, le matin reveals the artist’s masterful interpretation of the landscape genre. Executed in 1890, the present work depicts the road leading from Saint-Mammès, a small village located at the confluence of the Seine and Loing rivers, just north of Moret-sur-Loing in France.

Sisley first visited the area in 1881 and was immediately captivated by the interplay of paths and waterways unique to Saint-Mammès. Writing to Claude Monet, he remarked: “It’s not a bad part of the world, rather a chocolate-box landscape. You must remember it. On my side, when I arrived there were many fine things to do, but they have worked on the canal, cut the trees, made quays, aligned the banks” (Alfred Sisley, cited in Exh. Cat., London, Royal Academy of Arts, Alfred Sisley, 1992, p. 198).

Sisley permanently settled in Moret-sur-Loing in 1882, where he frequently roamed the surrounding villages such as Saint-Mammès and Veneux-les-Sablons to capture the local scenery. This relocation marked a renewed commitment to the landscape themes that had characterised his early career, when he painted provincial towns like Barbizon, Chailly-en-Bière, and Marlotte—places not far from Moret-sur-Loing. Consequently, Sisley’s later pastoral works thematically echo his early paintings and reveal the lasting influence of the Barbizon school on his artistic development (see figs. 2 and 3).

Throughout these final two decades, Sisley firmly established himself as a true Impressionist. He repeatedly painted his local surroundings, depicting the same scene from multiple viewpoints, under varying light and weather conditions, striving to capture a singular moment. In Le chemin de Saint-Mammès, le matin, by juxtaposing brushstrokes of green, blue, and yellow in the trees, he captures the effect of the early morning sun partially illuminating the treetops. As critic Gustave Geffroy wrote in 1923, “[Sisley] sought to express the harmonies that prevail, in all weathers and at every time of day, between foliage, water and sky, and he succeeded […]. He loved river banks; the fringes of woodland; towns and villages glimpsed through the old trees; old buildings swamped in greenery; winter morning sunlight; summer afternoons” (Gustave Geffroy, ‘Sisley’ in Les Cahiers d'Aujourd’hui, Paris, 1923, n.p.).

Art historian Sylvie Patin argues that in the 1880s, coinciding with Sisley’s decision to relocate to Moret-sur-Loing, there was “a significant phase in the development of Impressionism, and one to which Sisley’s reaction must be measured as surely as that of his fellow Impressionists, Monet, Renoir and Pissarro. After the search during the second half of the 1870s to capture on canvas the transient moment observed in the world, the success of the Impressionists’ approach was thrown into question by a combination of personal self-doubt and the criticism of their erstwhile loyal supporter, Émile Zola. […] While Monet, Renoir and Pissarro responded by questioning the fundamental principles which underlay their art, Sisley appears to have remained convinced of the validity of the aims of Impressionism, remaining to the end, as contemporary critics rightly observed, a true Impressionist.” (Exh. Cat., London, Royal Academy of Arts, Alfred Sisley, 1992, p. 183)

Sisley continued to focus on exploring how the experience of being within a landscape could be rendered in paint, and the present work is an important example of the artist’s tireless experimentation. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, Sisley constantly refined his technique, palette, and approach to his principal motifs—bucolic landscapes, rural villages, and water scenes. For instance, it was at Saint-Mammès that Sisley realised “the full potential of using a specific brushstroke and quality of paint to identify the mood of a landscape, be it thin, flat strokes of dry, almost chalky paint to convey a becalmed, crisp winter day, or bolder, more fully laden strokes of pigment with more oil to capture the shimmering heat of a midsummer’s day” (ibid, p. 183).

Executed with swift, spontaneous brushstrokes and portraying the gentle, dappled light of the early morning, Le chemin de Saint-Mammès, le matin exemplifies Sisley’s consummate mastery of the Impressionist technique, characterised by an unwavering pursuit to depict a singular, ephemeral moment in time.