Paysage à l'Hermitage, Pontoise
Camille Pissarro (1830–1903)

Camille Pissarro, Paysage à l'Hermitage, Pontoise (Landscape at l’Hermitage, Pontoise), 1875, oil on canvas, Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano. Collezione Cantone Ticino. Carla Milich-Fassbind Donation

One of the greatest exponents of Impressionism, Pissaro was born in the Dutch West Indies and moved to Paris in 1855. Intolerant of the strict rules of the Academy, his early works were strongly influenced by the painting of Corot and Courbet, while in Paris he met artists like Monet and Cézanne, with whom he became friends. In 1874, he took part in the first Impressionist exhibition, held at the studio of the renowned photographer Nadar, and he subsequently participated in all the other exhibitions of the group.

Pissaro painted the subject of this work many times, from different angles and points of view. It is a rural landscape in provincial France, a solid, balanced composition, created by the skilled alternation of horizontal planes and vertical lines. The painting is characterized by earthy colours and dominated by cool green tones, in many different shades. The plays of light and shadows, masterfully rendered by the artist, spring from a geometric structure, unlike the disintegration of light characteristic of Monet’s compositions.