NARRATOR:
Alfred Sisley felt strongly about communicating with the viewer:
ALFRED SISLEY (ACTOR):
“The motif must always be set down in a simple way, easily grasped and understood by the beholder. By the elimination of superfluous detail, the spectator should be led along the road that the artist indicates to him, and from the first be made to notice what the artist has felt.”
NARRATOR:
We certainly feel the deep chill, heavy atmosphere, and utter silence that Sisley experienced on this winter day. Trees and bits of scrubby brush poking out through the blanket of snow are rendered with just a few quick strokes of the brush. But Sisley was meticulous about color. In a painting that at first glance appears predominantly white, the range of hues is remarkable. Look closely—there’s almost no pure white anywhere on the canvas. But you’ll find hints of pale blue on the snow… and strokes of silvery blues and greens in the sky. Sisley worked quickly to paint in the basic elements. He then went back and added to the composition after it was dry, working over the new wet layer with strokes of pale color. In a few places in the sky, near the center, there are smooth areas, where he seems to have used his finger to wipe away some of the wet paint, revealing the original layer below.
This scene is set in Louveciennes, a village ten miles outside of Paris. Often called the cradle of Impressionism, it was home to many artists in the late 19th century, including Sisley, Renoir, Pissarro and Degas.
Louveciennes in the Snow
1872
Alfred Sisley (French, 1839-1899)
On View
An English expatriate, Sisley trained alongside Monet and Renoir in Paris during the 1860s and joined his friends in the Impressionist exhibitions of the 1870s and 1880s, where his works were distinguished by their radical economy of means. Here, portraying fresh snow in an open field, he used a few quick strokes to convey roofs and chimneys, trees silhouetted against a cloudy sky, a woman carrying a basket in the middle distance. The winter of 1872–73 was particularly severe, as the Impressionists’ pictures of towns up and down the Seine attest: snow falls on Monet’s Argenteuil; frost sparkles at Pissarro’s Pontoise. Sisley and his colleagues had settled in these places—each a short train ride from Paris—for their cheap rents and ready access to nature.
Details
- Artist Name: Alfred Sisley (French, 1839-1899)
- Title: Louveciennes in the Snow
- Date: 1872
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 20 x 28-3/4 in. (50.8 x 73.0 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1996.3.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
Picq-Véron, Ermont-Eaubonne, sold 25 June 1892 to;
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold 17 July 1892 to];
Henri Vever (1854-1943), Paris (sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 1-2 February 1897, lot 112, as Effet de Neige, for ff. 2200 to);
Mme Rambaud (probably Raimbaud).
Mme Cancurte, Paris.
[Hector Brame, Paris, sold 25 January 1951 to];
[Arthur Tooth & Sons, Ltd., London, stock no. 2533, sold 27 February 1951 to];
Audrey E. Pleydell-Bouverie, London, by bequest to;
[David Gibbs, New York, sold 25 September 1968 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation, transferred 1996 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold 17 July 1892 to];
Henri Vever (1854-1943), Paris (sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 1-2 February 1897, lot 112, as Effet de Neige, for ff. 2200 to);
Mme Rambaud (probably Raimbaud).
Mme Cancurte, Paris.
[Hector Brame, Paris, sold 25 January 1951 to];
[Arthur Tooth & Sons, Ltd., London, stock no. 2533, sold 27 February 1951 to];
Audrey E. Pleydell-Bouverie, London, by bequest to;
[David Gibbs, New York, sold 25 September 1968 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation, transferred 1996 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Recent Acquisitions by the Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1969-01-24 to 1969-08-08
Exposition A. Sisley
- Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 1897-02 to
Exposition d'oeuvres d'Alfred Sisley
- Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 1917-05-14 to 1917-06-07
Paris-Londres: A Collection of Pictures Recently Purchased in France
- London, Arthur Tooth & Sons, Ltd., 1951-04-11 to 1951-05-11
The Pleydell-Bouverie Collection of Impressionist and Other Paintings, Lent by the Hon. Mrs. A. E. Pleydell-Bouverie
- Tate Gallery, 1954-01-26 to 1954-04-25
Excellence: Art from the University Community
- University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, 1970-11-06 to 1971-01-09
[on loan]
- New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980-12-17 to 1981-08-20
Images of the Landscape, Barbizon and Impressionist Paintings from the Permanent Collection
- Norton Simon Museum, 1987-07-02 to 1989-10-29
Three Centuries of French Art: Selections from The Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art and The Norton Simon Foundation_1
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1973-05-03 to 1976-06-15
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, p. 136
- The French Impressionists in Southern California: Paintings, Sculptures and Prints in Public Collections. A Guidebook and Catalogue,
- Daulte, François, Alfred Sisley: catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, 1959, no. 52
- Brettell, Richard R. and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, volume 1, 2006,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 526 p. 308
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