The Banks of the Marne in Winter

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

This painting of a rural winter landscape is resolutely un-picturesque. Its dark color palette is uninterrupted by any majestic natural elements, such as towering trees or a glittering pond. Even early in his career, Camille Pissarro subverted traditional landscape painting by deliberately diverging from the pastoral scenes of his mentor, Camille Corot . In this large, rectangular canvas, Pisarro applied paint heavily, often using a palette knife, in emulation of Gustave Courbet , whose work is on view nearby. Just a few years after he made this work, Pissarro adopted a more immediate approach to landscape painting, working en plein air (outdoors) directly from nature rather than in a studio, a technique closely associated with the Impressionists.

Source ↗