“The Garden at Pontoise”
This lovely oil on canvas painting displaying summer’s abundance is titled “The Garden at Pontoise”. It is by the Danish-French Impressionism artist, Camille Pissarro, from 1877.
Pontoise is a small community just outside of Paris, France. Pissarro lived there in short bursts between 1866 and 1870. He moved out there permanently with his new wife in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War. They stayed until 1883 when he moved back to Paris. The scenery at Pontoise provided endless inspiration for his work and was the setting for many of his paintings from the mid 1870s, including this colorful piece shown here.
In “The Garden at Pontoise”, Pissarro painted the colorful property of Marie Desraimes, an author and women’s right advocate who was hugely influential on the American suffragist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Her house can be seen in the background on the left partially hidden by the park surrounding her home.
This is the exact same setting for Pissarro’s painting, “A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage” painted the same year, in the collections of the Musée d’Orsay. The only difference are the subjects seated on the park bench. This more urban scene is a break from his usual country vistas. It may be that he aspired to create more urban-based paintings after receiving some criticism during the Impressionist exhibition of 1874 for his country tastes.
“The Garden at Pontoise” is currently in a private collection.
For more on Camille Pissarro, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
