Camille Pissarro

Claude Monet
Michel Monet, Giverny (son of the above)
Wildenstein & Co., New York (acquired from the above in the 1940s)
Mr & Mrs Benjamin and Minna Reeves, New York (acquired from the above in 1952; sale: Sotheby’s, New York, 13^th May 1992, lot 43)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie, Exposition Camille Pissarro, 1930, no. 45

Ludovic Rodo Pissarro & Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro. Son art – son œuvre, Paris, 1939, vol. I, no. 442, catalogued p. 143; vol. II, no. 442, illustrated pl. 89
John Rewald, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1963, illustrated in colour p. 111
Richard R. Brettell, Pissarro and Pontoise, New Haven & London, 1990, no. 38, illustrated in colour p. 47; no. 118, illustration in colour of a detail p. 125

In Le Parc aux Charrettes, painted in 1878, Pissarro renders a picturesque scene from the town of Pontoise (fig. 1), where he lived from 1866 until 1883. In deciding to move to Pontoise, the artist was partly guided by a desire to separate himself from the influence of his predecessors, the established French landscape painters, and to depict an environment previously scarcely recorded by other masters. Located some twenty-five miles northwest of Paris, Pontoise was built on a hilltop, with the river Oise passing through it, elements which made it a highly appealing environment in which to paint en plein-air. The town’s economy included agriculture as well as industry, and it was also an important centre of poultry and vegetable supplies, all of which offered Pissarro a wide range of subjects, from crowded semi-urban genre scenes (figs. 2 & 3), views of roads (fig. 4) and factories, to farmers working on the fields and isolated landscapes devoid of human presence. A further source of inspiration was provided by the town’s varied architecture, that reflected its rich history.

Of Pissarro’s depictions of Pontoise, the present work is one of the most animated ones. A dynamic colouration is achieved through the contrast between warm yellow and orange tones and the cooler blues, punctuated by the green highlights of the tree to the left. The foreground shows several people walking on the street: ladies in fashionable clothes, a woman walking her dog, girls pushing prams and a carpenter carrying a wooden plank. The central register of the composition is dominated by a large tree, whose elegantly curving branches emphasise a sense of movement, and add an element of nature in an otherwise urban setting. In the background, the church of Saint-Maclou rises above the town’s rooftops, its tower piercing the blue sky.

Discussing the wide range of features in the present composition, John Rewald described Le Parc aux Charrettes as ‘a combination of the various elements on which Pissarro liked to dwell: solid forms of buildings opposed to the graceful arabesques of a tree, clouds in a blue sky, the sensation of movement provided by a few figures set against a wall behind which appears the tangle of colourful structures, and throughout, a bright light that bathes the entire scene, brushed vividly and in almost gay tonalities. Yet this direct and apparently spontaneous interpretation of life in a small town was still contrary to what conventional critics expected’ (J. Rewald, op. cit., p. 110).

Although the tower of Saint-Maclou, one of the towns two main churches, is clearly recognisable in the background of Le Parc aux Charrettes, Richard R. Brettell argues that Pissarro reduced the size of the church in relation to the other elements of the composition, reflecting his lack of interest in religious institutions. He wrote about the present work: ‘Pissarro chose a site in a small transitional square between the place de la Gare and the place aux Marchés with an unlikely name, parc aux Charrettes. The square commands an excellent view of the flamboyant Gothic tower of Saint-Maclou with its oddly appropriate Renaissance “crown” by the great Pontoisian architect, Jacques Lemercier. Standing in the square and looking uphill, the tower is the single dominating form. Its uppermost proportions are rather broader and physically taller than they are in the picture, where the tower is of roughly the same size and surface scale as the adult figures and is insignificant compared with the curvilinear activity of the tree. The tree is, in fact, the most active and fascinating form within the composition. It is larger, more potent, and taller than the tower of Saint-Maclou and makes it shrink in relative importance’ (R. R. Brettell, op. cit., p. 46). In reducing the relative size of the church, the artist has achieved a rich and balanced composition in which the elements of architecture, nature and human activity are depicted in perfect proportion, making this one of Pissarro’s most vivid and accomplished Pontoise paintings.

Fig. 1, A view of Pontoise, 19th century postcard
Fig. 2, Camille Pissarro, Fête de Septembre, Pontoise, 1872, oil on canvas, Private Collection
Fig. 3, Camille Pissarro, Le Marché à la volaille, Pontoise, 1882, oil on canvas, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
Fig. 4, Camille Pissarro, Rue de L'Hermitage à Pontoise, 1875, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa