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Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist
landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...
painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape ''
en plein air ''En plein air'' (; French language, French for 'outdoors'), or plein-air painting, is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein ai ...
'' (i.e., outdoors). He deviated into
figure painting A figure painting is a work of fine art in any of the Painting#Painting media, painting media with the primary subject being the human figure, whether clothed or Nude (art), nude. Figure painting may also refer to the activity of creating such ...
only rarely and, unlike Renoir and Pissarro, he found that Impressionism fulfilled his artistic needs. Among his important works are a series of paintings of the
River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...
, mostly around
Hampton Court Hampton Court Palace is a Listed building, Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. Opened to the public, the palace is managed by Historic Royal ...
, executed in 1874, and landscapes depicting places in or near Moret-sur-Loing. The notable paintings of the
Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...
and its bridges in the former suburbs of Paris are like many of his landscapes, characterised by tranquillity, in pale shades of green, pink, purple, dusty blue and cream. Over the years Sisley's power of expression and colour intensity increased. Richard Shone: ''Sisley.'' London: Phaidon Press 1999.


Biography

Sisley was born in Paris to affluent British parents. His father, William Sisley, was in the silk business, and his mother, Felicia Sell, was a cultivated music connoisseur. In 1857, at the age of 18, Alfred Sisley was sent to London to study for a career in business, but he abandoned it after four years and returned to Paris in 1861. From 1862, he studied at the Paris
École des Beaux-Arts ; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centu ...
within the ''atelier'' of Swiss artist Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre, where he became acquainted with Frédéric Bazille,
Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 â€“ 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...
, and
Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; ; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French people, French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionism, Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially femininity, fe ...
. Together they would paint landscapes ''
en plein air ''En plein air'' (; French language, French for 'outdoors'), or plein-air painting, is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein ai ...
'' rather than in the studio, in order to capture the transient effects of sunlight realistically. This approach, innovative at the time, resulted in paintings more colourful and more broadly painted than the public was accustomed to seeing. Consequently, Sisley and his friends initially had few opportunities to exhibit or sell their work. Their works were usually rejected by the jury of the most important
art exhibition An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is occasionally true, it is stated to be a "permanen ...
in France, the annual
Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...
. During the 1860s, though, Sisley was in a better financial position than some of his fellow artists, as he received an allowance from his father. In 1866, Sisley began a relationship with Eugénie Lescouezec (1834–1898; usually known as Marie Lescouezec), a Breton living in Paris. The couple had two children: son Pierre (born 1867) and daughter Jeanne (1869). At the time, Sisley lived not far from Avenue de Clichy and the Café Guerbois, the gathering-place of many Parisian painters. In 1868, his paintings were accepted at the Salon, but the exhibition did not bring him financial or critical success; nor did subsequent exhibitions. In 1870, the
Franco-Prussian War The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...
began; as a result, Sisley's father's business failed, and the painter's sole means of support became the sale of his works. For the remainder of his life he would live in poverty, as his paintings did not rise significantly in monetary value until after his death. Occasionally, however, Sisley would be backed by patrons, and this allowed him, among other things, to make a few brief trips to Britain. The first of these occurred in 1874, after the first independent Impressionist exhibition. The result of a few months spent south-west of London was a series of nearly twenty paintings of the non-tidal
Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...
at East Molesey and below its Hampton Court Bridge where the south bank becomes Thames Ditton which was later described by art historian
Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director and broadcaster. His expertise covered a wide range of artists and periods, but he is particularly associated with Italian Renaissa ...
as "a perfect moment of Impressionism." Until 1880, Sisley lived and worked in the country west of Paris; then he and his family moved to a small village near Moret-sur-Loing, close to the forest of Fontainebleau, where the painters of the Barbizon school had worked earlier in the century. Here, as art historian Anne Poulet has said, "the gentle landscapes with their constantly changing atmosphere were perfectly attuned to his talents. Unlike Monet, he never sought the drama of the rampaging ocean or the brilliantly colored scenery of the CĂ´te d'Azur." In 1881, Sisley made a second brief voyage to
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
. In 1897, Sisley and his partner visited Britain again, and were finally married in
Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...
at
Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...
Register Office on 5 August. They stayed at Penarth, where Sisley painted at least six oils of the sea and the cliffs. In mid-August they moved to the Osborne Hotel at Langland Bay on the
Gower Peninsula The Gower Peninsula (), or simply Gower (), is a peninsula in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan, and is now within the City and County of Swansea. It projects towards th ...
, where he produced at least eleven oil paintings in and around Langland Bay and Rotherslade (then called Lady's Cove). They returned to France in October. This was Sisley's last voyage to his ancestral homeland. The National Museum Cardiff possesses two of his oil paintings of Penarth and Langland. The following year Sisley applied for French citizenship, but was refused. A second application was made and supported by a police report, but illness intervened, and Sisley remained a British national until his death. He died on 29 January 1899 of throat cancer in Moret-sur-Loing at the age of 59, a few months after the death of his wife.


Work

Sisley's student works are lost. His first landscape paintings are sombre, coloured with dark browns, greens, and pale blues. They were often executed at Marly and Saint-Cloud. Little is known about Sisley's relationship with the paintings of J. M. W. Turner and
John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
, which he may have seen in London, but some have suggested that these artists may have influenced his development as an Impressionist painter, as may have Gustave Courbet and
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; 16 July 1796 â€“ 22 February 1875), or simply Camille Corot, was a French Landscape art, landscape and Portraitist, portrait painter as well as a printmaking, printmaker in etching. A pivotal figure in ...
. He was inspired by the style and subject matter of previous modern painters Camille Pissarro and Edouard Manet. Among the Impressionists, Sisley has been overshadowed by Monet, whose work his resembles in style and subject matter, although Sisley's effects are more subdued. Described by art historian Robert Rosenblum as having "almost a generic character, an impersonal textbook idea of a perfect Impressionist painting", his work strongly invokes atmosphere, and his skies are always impressive. He concentrated on landscape more consistently than any other Impressionist painter. Among Sisley's best-known works are ''Street in Moret'' and ''Sand Heaps'', both owned by the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...
, and ''The Bridge at Moret-sur-Loing'', shown at
Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...
, Paris. ''Allée des peupliers de Moret'' (''The Lane of Poplars at Moret'') has been stolen three times from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nice – once in 1978 when on loan in Marseilles (recovered a few days later in the city's sewers), again in 1998 (when the museum's curator was convicted of the theft and jailed for five years with two accomplices), and finally in August 2007 (on 4 June 2008 French police recovered it and three other stolen paintings from a van in Marseilles). A large number of fake Sisleys have been discovered. Sisley produced some 900 oil paintings, some 100 pastels and many other drawings. During the Nazi period (1933–1945) a number of Sisley works were taken from Jewish art collectors by Nazis or their agents as part of the massive looting of Jews that preceded the Holocaust. On 18 June 2004 Sisley's ''Soleil de printemps, le Loing'' (1892) was restored to the family of Louis Hirsch, in a ceremony in Paris. In 2008 a dispute erupted between Alain Dreyfus, an art dealer in Switzerland, and the auction house Christie's over a Sisley painting ''First Day of Spring in Moret'', that was claimed by the Lindon family in court in Paris. Dreyfus said that Christie's had not sufficiently examined the work's history, or provenance, before putting it up for sale. Also in 2008, the Sisley ''Bateaux en Réparation à Saint Mammès'' (1885) was recognised as having been looted by the Nazis and the subject of a settlement with the heirs of Benno and Frances Bernstein who had owned it before Nazi occupation. Numerous Sisleys such as ''Winter Landscape'' were known to have been seized by the Nazi looting organisation known as the E.R.R. and still have not been found. The German Lost Art Foundation has 24 listings for Sisley.


Selected works

* '' Avenue of Chestnut Trees near La Celle-Saint-Cloud'' (1865) * '' View of Montmartre from Cité des Fleurs to Les Batignolles'' (1869) * '' The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne'' (1872) * '' Ferry to the Ile-de-la-Loge – Flood'' (1872) * '' La Grande-Rue, Argenteuil'' () * '' Square in Argenteuil (Rue de la Chaussee)'' (1872) * ' (1872) * '' Chemin de la Machine, Louveciennes'' (1873) * ' (1873) * '' Hampton Court Bridge (painting)'' (1874) * '' Molesey Weir – Morning'' (1874) * '' Regatta at Molesey'' (1874) * '' Under Hampton Court Bridge'' (1874) * '' The Terrace at Saint-Germain, Spring'' (1875) * '' The Small Meadows in Spring, By'' ()


Gallery

File:Sisley, St Martin Canal 1870.jpg, '' St. Martin Canal'', 1870,
Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...
, Paris File:Sisley-argenteuil-aixB.jpg, '' The Seine at Argenteuil'', 1872, Faure Museum, Aix-les-Bains File:The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne MET DT1040.jpg, ''The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne'', 1872,
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, New York City File:Alfred Sisley 031.jpg, ''Grain fields on the hills of Argenteuil'', 1873, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg File:Sisley-Chemin de la Machine Louveciennes.jpg, ''Chemin de la Machine, Louveciennes'', 1873,
Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...
, Paris File:Alfred Sisley - Fog, Voisins - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Fog, Voisins'', 1874,
Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...
, Paris File:La Petite Place - La Rue du Village - Alfred Sisley - ABDAG000505.jpg, ''La Petite Place - La Rue du Village'', 1874,
Aberdeen Art Gallery Aberdeen Art Gallery is the main visual arts exhibition space in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1884 in a building designed by Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, with a sculpture court added in 1905. In 1900, it received the art ...
File:Sisley-Under the Bridge at Hampton Court.jpg, '' Under the Bridge at Hampton Court'', 1874, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland File:Alfred Sisley - The Terrace at Saint-Germain, Spring - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Terrace at Saint-Germain, Spring'', 1875, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore File:Meadow, Alfred Sisley, 1875.jpg, '' The Meadow'', 1875, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. File:Alfred Sisley 018.jpg, ''The Seine at Bougival'', 1876,
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, New York City File:Alfred sisley 1607 la seine a suresnes wm.jpg, ''La Seine à Suresnes'', 1880, Rehs Galleries, Inc., New York City File:Alfred Sisley - Le Givre à Veneux - UMMA.jpg, ''Le Givre à Veneux'', 1880, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor File:Alfred Sisley - Un sentier aux Sablons (A path at Les Sablons) - Google Art Project.jpg, ''A path at Les Sablons'', 1883, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra File:Alfred Sisley - La lisière de la Foret de Fontainebleau - Pushkin museum.jpg, '' The Edge of Fontainebleau Forest'', 1885,
Pushkin Museum The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (, abbreviated as , ''GMII'') is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatos ...
, Moscow File:Alfred Sisley - Women Going to the Woods - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Women Going to the Woods'', 1886,
Artizon Museum Artizon Museum , until 2018 , is an art museum in Tokyo, Japan. The museum was founded in 1952 by the founder of Bridgestone Tire Co., Shojiro Ishibashi, Ishibashi Shojiro (his family name means stone bridge). The museum's collections include I ...
, Tokyo File:La havre muma sisley pont moret.JPG, ''Le Pont de Moret, effet d'orage'', 1887, Musée Malraux, Le Havre File:Alfred Sisley 013.jpg, ''Seaside, Langland'', 1887, Museum of Fine Arts Bern File:(Barcelona) Alfred Sisley - A Bend in the Loing - Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.jpg, ''A Bend in the Loing'', 1892, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona File:Alfred Sisley 038.jpg, ''The Church at Moret in the Morning Sun'', 1893,
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen () is an art museum in Rouen, in Normandy in north-western France. It was established by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1801, and is housed in a building designed by and built between 1877, and 1888. Its collections in ...
File:Alfred Sisley - A Forest Clearing - 1895.jpg, ''A Forest Clearing'', 1895, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid


Notes


References

*Bomford, David, Jo Kirby, John Leighton, Ashok Roy, and Raymond White (1990). ''Impressionism''. London: National Gallery. *Sylvie Brame, François Lorenceau. ''Alfred Sisley – Catalogue raisonné des peintures et des pastels''. Paris, Galerie Brame & Lorenceau, 2021 *Daulte, F. (1959). ''Alfred Sisley Catalogue raisonnee de l'oeuvre peint'' *Denvir, B. (2000). ''The Chronicle of Impressionism: An Intimate Diary of the Lives and World of the Great Artists''. London: Thames & Hudson. *Poulet, A. L., & Murphy, A. R. (1979). ''Corot to Braque: French Paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston''. Boston: The Museum. *Reed, Nicholas, (2008). ''Sisley on the Thames and the Welsh Coast''. Lilburne Press. *Rosenblum, Robert (1989). ''Paintings in the Musée d'Orsay''. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang. *Turner, J. (2000). ''From Monet to Cézanne: late 19th-century French artists''. Grove Art. New York: St Martin's Press.


External links

* *
Alfred Sisley.org

Paintings by Sisley
* *
''Impressionism : a centenary exhibition, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 12, 1974 – February 10, 1975''
fully digitised text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art libraries {{DEFAULTSORT:Sisley, Alfred 1839 births 1899 deaths 19th-century British painters Painters from Paris British male painters British alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts British Impressionist painters Deaths from throat cancer in France