Camille Pissarro’s The Banks of the Marne in Winter,1866 challenges the conventions of provincial landscapes through the depopulation and spatial organization of the romantic countryside present in Constant Troyon’s The Marsh,1840.
Both Troyon and Pissarro’s large scale works depict provincial French landscapes complete with peasant women and wide reaching skies, however the methods used in the two paintings are disparate enough to bring forward arguments about the inherent modernity in simplifying a landscape.
Pissarro’s scene consists of thick swatches of color applied with a palette knife. The image is divided between a bright green field, a drab rolling hillside, and a massive stormy sky. A line of thin poplars separates the foreground from a horse path that is being traversed by two figures in black, a woman and a small child. Against the hill in the background there are two geometrically rendered farmhouses, both far enough away from the figures that the viewer is unsure if they’ll arrive home before the rain hits.
Speaking of rain, the sky is characterized by a distinct lack of sunlight and appears heavy with water. This is emphasized by the scumbling of deep greys over white. The multitude of imposing clouds creates a feeling of dread in the viewer, further pushed by the thick application of unmixed color onto the surface of the piece. Green is the brightest color in an otherwise muted palette. It should be mentioned that despite the painting’s title, the green grass in the foreground is uncharacteristic of wintertime. It appears that the field was painted bright green for purely formal concerns. The bright green grass contrasts the ominous grey clouds of the sky and drab browns of the hillside. The addition of green evokes a possibility of life that is lacking in the rest of the composition. The artist’s hand is clearly present in this painting. …show more content…
Pissarro’s palette knife creates sharply defined color fields that differentiate the elements in the image and simplifies them enough to only show mimesis when observed from a distance. For example, aside from the poplars separating the picture plane, there are no fully defined trees in the landscape, similarly the houses on the hillside have been reduced to clear geometric forms.
In The Marsh, 1840, Troyon uses precisely stippled brushstrokes to show how light interacts with various forms in an idyllic and unspecified landscape. The composition is almost overwhelmingly bright. Troyon’s tiny brushstrokes mimic dappled light on the foliage of each and every tree in the composition. No piece of vegetation is spared from illumination. The decision to mirror the blue radiation of the sky on the surface of the marsh further amplifies the brightness of the setting. In the foreground is the titular marsh. Along the rocky bank, foraging cows accompany a group of small children as peasant women do laundry, the colors of their clothing reflected on the surface of the water. Two patches of forest sit on a ground placed above the marsh, they are separated just enough from each other to display the rooftops of a distant village. The areas of the field that are left deforested provide enough negative space to appropriately compliment the sky, which is reflected in the marsh below. The bushes surrounding the forested area on the left of the picture plane are being used to dry colorful
Both Troyon and Pissarro’s large scale works depict provincial French landscapes complete with peasant women and wide reaching skies, however the methods used in the two paintings are disparate enough to bring forward arguments about the inherent modernity in simplifying a landscape.
Pissarro’s scene consists of thick swatches of color applied with a palette knife. The image is divided between a bright green field, a drab rolling hillside, and a massive stormy sky. A line of thin poplars separates the foreground from a horse path that is being traversed by two figures in black, a woman and a small child. Against the hill in the background there are two geometrically rendered farmhouses, both far enough away from the figures that the viewer is unsure if they’ll arrive home before the rain hits.
Speaking of rain, the sky is characterized by a distinct lack of sunlight and appears heavy with water. This is emphasized by the scumbling of deep greys over white. The multitude of imposing clouds creates a feeling of dread in the viewer, further pushed by the thick application of unmixed color onto the surface of the piece. Green is the brightest color in an otherwise muted palette. It should be mentioned that despite the painting’s title, the green grass in the foreground is uncharacteristic of wintertime. It appears that the field was painted bright green for purely formal concerns. The bright green grass contrasts the ominous grey clouds of the sky and drab browns of the hillside. The addition of green evokes a possibility of life that is lacking in the rest of the composition. The artist’s hand is clearly present in this painting. …show more content…
Pissarro’s palette knife creates sharply defined color fields that differentiate the elements in the image and simplifies them enough to only show mimesis when observed from a distance. For example, aside from the poplars separating the picture plane, there are no fully defined trees in the landscape, similarly the houses on the hillside have been reduced to clear geometric forms.
In The Marsh, 1840, Troyon uses precisely stippled brushstrokes to show how light interacts with various forms in an idyllic and unspecified landscape. The composition is almost overwhelmingly bright. Troyon’s tiny brushstrokes mimic dappled light on the foliage of each and every tree in the composition. No piece of vegetation is spared from illumination. The decision to mirror the blue radiation of the sky on the surface of the marsh further amplifies the brightness of the setting. In the foreground is the titular marsh. Along the rocky bank, foraging cows accompany a group of small children as peasant women do laundry, the colors of their clothing reflected on the surface of the water. Two patches of forest sit on a ground placed above the marsh, they are separated just enough from each other to display the rooftops of a distant village. The areas of the field that are left deforested provide enough negative space to appropriately compliment the sky, which is reflected in the marsh below. The bushes surrounding the forested area on the left of the picture plane are being used to dry colorful