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Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an
Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
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'' (i.e., outdoors). He deviated into figure painting 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, mostly around Hampton Court, executed in 1874, and landscapes depicting places in or near Moret-sur-Loing. The notable paintings of the
Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...
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 Richard Shone (born 1949) is a British art historian and art critic specializing in British modern art, and from 2003–15 was the editor of ''The Burlington Magazine''. Career At age 16, Shone was already well enough connected in the Briti ...
: ''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 within the ''atelier'' of Swiss artist Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre, where he became acquainted with
Frédéric Bazille Jean Frédéric Bazille (December 6, 1841 – November 28, 1870) was a French Impressionist painter. Many of Bazille's major works are examples of figure painting in which he placed the subject figure within a landscape painted ''en plein air''. ...
, Claude Monet, and
Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "R ...
. Together they would paint landscapes '' en plein air'' 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 in France, the annual
Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...
. 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
CafĂ© Guerbois CafĂ© Guerbois, on Avenue de Clichy in Paris, was the site of late 19th-century discussions and planning amongst artists, writers and art lovers – the '' bohèmes'' (bohemians), in contrast to the ''bourgeois''. Centered on Édouard Ma ...
, 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 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 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 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 Anne Poulet (born March 20, 1942) is a retired American art historian. Poulet is an expert in the area of French art, particularly sculpture. In her career, she organized two major monographic exhibitions on the French sculptors Clodion and Jea ...
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
Côte d'Azur The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...
." In 1881, Sisley made a second brief voyage to Great Britain. In 1897, Sisley and his partner visited Britain again, and were finally married in Wales at Cardiff Register Office on 5 August. They stayed at
Penarth Penarth (, ) is a town and Community (Wales), community in the Vale of Glamorgan ( cy, Bro Morgannwg), Wales, exactly south of Cardiff city centre on the west shore of the Severn Estuary at the southern end of Cardiff Bay. Penarth is a weal ...
, 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, 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. His body was buried with that of his wife at Moret-sur-Loing Cemetery.


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 Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulen ...
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 ( , , ; July 16, 1796 â€“ February 22, 1875), or simply Camille Corot, is a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast ...
. 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 Robert Rosenblum (July 24, 1927 – December 6, 2006) was an American art historian and curator known for his influential and often irreverent scholarship on European and American art of the mid-eighteenth to 20th centuries. Biography Rosenblum wa ...
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 in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
, and ''The Bridge at Moret-sur-Loing'', shown at
Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...
, 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 ''Bateux 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 ''View of Montmartre from Cité des Fleurs to Les Batignolles'' is a painting by Alfred Sisley, produced in spring 1869 now in the Musée de Grenoble. It bears national museums reference France Inv. MG 1317. It was given to that museum in 1901 b ...
'' (1869) * ''
The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne ''The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne'' is an oil on canvas painting by Alfred Sisley created in 1872. It depicts a suspension bridge across the Seine looking toward the village of Villeneuve-la-Garenne. Holidaymakers can be seen on the river ...
'' (1872) * ''
Ferry to the Ile-de-la-Loge – Flood ''Ferry to the Ile-de-la-Loge – Flood'' is a painting by Alfred Sisley. He produced it during a flood on the Seine, which had begun in late October and reached its peak on 17 December. The painting was finished in December 1872. It was bough ...
'' (1872) * '' La Grande-Rue, Argenteuil'' (c. 1872) * '' Square in Argenteuil (Rue de la Chaussee)'' (1872) * ' (1872) * '' Chemin de la Machine, Louveciennes'' (1873) * ' (1873) * ''
Hampton Court Bridge (painting) Hampton may refer to: Places Australia *Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia *Hampton, New South Wales *Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region *Hampton, Victoria Canada *Hampton, New Brunswick *Hamp ...
'' (1874) * '' Molesey Weir – Morning'' (1874) * '' Regatta at Molesey'' (1874) * ''
Under Hampton Court Bridge ''Under Hampton Court Bridge'' is an 1874 painting by Alfred Sisley, now in the Kunstmuseum Winterthur The Kunst Museum Winterthur (English: The Winterthur Museum of Art) is an art museum in Winterthur, Switzerland run by the local ''Kunstverei ...
'' (1874) * '' The Terrace at Saint-Germain, Spring'' (1875) * ''
The Small Meadows in Spring, By ''The Small Meadows in Spring, By'' (French ''Les Petits Prés au printemps, By'') is an 1881 painting by Alfred Sisley, on loan from Tate Britain to the National Gallery since 1997. The location it shows is now paved, but was then a wooded pa ...
'' (c. 1881)


Gallery

File:Sisley, St Martin Canal 1870.jpg, '' St. Martin Canal'' (1870) File:Sisley-Early Snow at Louveciennes.jpg, ''Early Snow at Louveciennes'' (c. 1871–72) File:Sisley-Among the Vines Louveciennes.jpg, ''Among the Vines Louveciennes'' (1874) File:Alfred Sisley - Fog, Voisins - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Fog, Voisins'' (1874) File:Alfred Sisley 009.jpg, ''Bridge at Hampton Court'' (1874) File:Alfred Sisley 050.jpg, '' Regatta at Molesey'' (1874) File:La Petite Place - La Rue du Village - Alfred Sisley - ABDAG000505.jpg, ''La Petite Place - La Rue du Village'' (1874), Aberdeen Art Gallery File:Sisley-Under the Bridge at Hampton Court.jpg, '' Under the Bridge at Hampton Court'' (1874) File:Meadow, Alfred Sisley, 1875.jpg, '' The Meadow'' (1875) File:Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) - The Flood at Port-Marly - PD.69-1958 - Fitzwilliam Museum.jpg, ''The Flood at Port Marly'' (1876), Fitzwilliam Museum File:La havre muma sisley pont moret.JPG, ''Le Pont de Moret, effet d'orage'', 1887, Musée Malraux, Le Havre File:Alfred Sisley - View of Saint-Mammès - Walters 37355.jpg, ''View of Saint-Mammès'', (circa 1880), The Walters Art Museum File:Alfred Sisley - Un sentier aux Sablons (A path at Les Sablons) - Google Art Project.jpg, ''A path at Les Sablons'' (1883) File:Alfred Sisley, The Port of Moret-sur-Loing - At night, 1884.jpg, ''The Port of Moret-sur-Loing'' (1884) File:Alfred Sisley - Women Going to the Woods - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Women Going to the Woods'' (1886) File:Alfred Sisley 013.jpg, ''Seaside, Langland '' (1887) File:Alfred Sisley 038.jpg, ''Church in Moret'' (1889) File:Alfred Sisley 051.jpg, ''Saint-Mammès in the Morning'' (1890) File:Alfred Sisley - Le Givre à Veneux - UMMA.jpg, ''Le Givre à Veneux'', 1880, University of Michigan Museum of Art


Notes


References

*Bomford, David, Jo Kirby, John Leighton, Ashok Roy, and Raymond White (1990). ''Impressionism''. London: National Gallery. *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 English painters 19th-century French painters Artists from Paris English male painters French male painters British alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts British Impressionist painters Deaths in France Deaths from throat cancer French Impressionist painters French people of English descent