Camille Pissarro

FERME À MONTFOUCAULT, NEIGE 1874

In 1874, when the present work was painted, Pissarro and his family visited the Piette family in the remote hamlet of Montfoucault, about a two-day journey from Pontoise. Feeling the pressures of the Parisian art world and his financial responsibilities to his family, Pissarro believed that the quiet solitude of the farms and enclosed fields of this cul-de-sac on the border of Brittany and Normandy would provide a much needed respite. Indeed, the artist's brief escape to this secluded area would prove to be personally and professionally cathartic.

It was, in fact, in Montfoucault that Pissarro began studying local peasant life, and this work is a compelling example of the stylistic development engendered by the artist's encounters in the country. In the present work, he depicted a farm scene with grazing animals amidst the tranquil winter landscape. Pissarro executed this scene as if the land has been untouched by any meddling industrial presence. Quite the opposite of the " Grands boulevards" and the towering buildings of Paris from which the artist had temporarily sought refuge, Montfoucault offered a poignant reminder of the overarching beauty of the natural landscape. In the present work, the predominantly silvery grey tones unify the composition and underscore the affinity of the otherwise disparate features of farm, land, sky and animals.

"Pissarro met Ludovic Piette in 1859 at the Académie Suisse in Paris, where both artists had enrolled in a course. Although not as well known as Pissarro, Piette exhibited regularly at the Salon in the 1860s and thirty of his paintings were shown at the Pissarro Exhibition of 1877. Piette lived at Montfoucault, a small village which lies on the border between Normandy and Brittany. He repeatedly invited Pissarro to come and stay, and as the Franco- Prussian War broke out in 1870 it was there that Pissarro and his family had taken refuge before crossing over to England.

Pissarro also spent the summer of 1874 with Piette, recovering from the stress and disappointment caused by the first Impressionist Exhibition in May that year, and after a short spell in Paris he returned to spend the winter at Montfoucault. It was during this stay that Pissarro concentrated closely on the image of peasant rural life; he made numerous paintings of female peasants engaged in their daily routines. He wrote to Theodore Duret of this new fascination: "I haven't worked badly here. I have been tackling figures and animals. I have several genre pictures. I am rather chary about going in for a branch of art in which first-rate artists have so distinguished themselves. It is a very bold thing to do, and I am afraid of making a complete failure of it. ""

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