Alfred Sisley - The Road from Versailles to Louveciennes [c.1879]

Alfred Sisley - The Road from Versailles to Louveciennes [c.1879], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In the 1870s, Sisley (English, Paris, 1839 - Moret-sur-Loing, 1899), like his fellow Impressionists Monet and Pissarro, painted in the villages to the north and west of Paris, which were rapidly becoming suburbs of the capital. The landscapes by the three artists often depicted the roads, bridges, and waterways that linked these outlying villages with Paris. 

The site in this painting is the main road between Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Sisley's juxtaposition of two figures on the road, a rural labourer pushing a cart and a man clad in the urban uniform of black suit and top hat, alludes to the transformative effects of industrialisation and suburbanisation on the French countryside. Sisley's loose, summary technique in this work is in keeping with his style of the late 1870s, as he moved away from the broken brushwork of his earlier Impressionist paintings.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 55.9 cm]