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Claude Monet
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Edgar Degas
Gustave Caillebotte
Mary Cassatt
Camille Pissarro
Berthe Morisot
Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley (30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist painter who was interested especially in landscape and outdoor painting (en plein air). He was born in Paris to affluent English parents who lost all their wealth after the Franco-German War (1870-71).
Sisley preferred painting landscapes while being outdoors. The loose brushwork indicates the artist's effort to quickly capture the effects of natural light.
En Plein Air
Painting outdoors
Alfred Sisley, Garden Path in Louveciennes, 1873, oil on canvas, 65 x 46 cm, Private collection.
The boating scene in this painting depicts the bourgeoisie lifestyle against the backdrop of an outdoor scene. Focusing on the effects of natural light on water is an Impressionist characteristic.
Bourgeoisie
A new upper-middle class
En Plein Air
Painting outdoors
Industrial Revolution
New manufacturing processes
Alfred Sisley, The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne, 1872, oil on canvas, 49.5 x 65.4 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
In this painting, Sisley gives the center stage to the natural sunlight and the way it illuminates the outdoor scene by framing it with the shadows of the trees in the foreground.
Light & Color
Depicting the effects
of natural light
En Plein Air
Painting outdoors
Alfred Sisley, Village on the banks of the Seine, 1872, oil on canvas, 59.2 x 80 cm, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.
Like Monet's Rouen Cathedral series, Sisley also painted a series of a church at Moret-sur-Loing, where he aimed to capture the different effects of natural light on color and various surfaces.
Light & Color
Depicting the effects
of natural light
En Plein Air
Painting outdoors
Alfred Sisley, The Church at Moret in Morning Sun, 1893, oil on canvas, 80 x 65 cm, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland.
14 January 1841
2 March 1895
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