Camille Pissarro - Quai Malaquais, Sunny Afternoon [1903]

Camille Pissarro - Quai Malaquais, Sunny Afternoon [1903], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Pissarro painted four scenes of the Quai Malaquais from the same spot. The largest and most significant of them is the present canvas. The view portrayed here has survived to the present day. Although active, the banks of the Seine were among the less noisy and congested transportation arteries of Paris. Looking out the window of his hotel to the cobblestone street running into the distance, Pissarro, a true Impressionist, was charmed by the mutability of everything that fell into his field of vision. But here, the motif of actual physical activity, in particular the motion of the carriages, is less important. Nevertheless, Pissarro, by various means, chiefly through the diagonals and curves in the composition, creates the sense of a dynamic Paris street at midday. At the same time it is noteworthy that the entire series is distinguished by the centralised, even stage-like nature of the arrangement. In the present picture, the canopies of the trees to the left and the corner of the building to the right frame this outdoor stage. This canvas was one of the artist's last works.

[Oil on canvas, 65.3 x 81.5 cm]