Sydney Townsend

Alfred Sisley

Alfred Sisley was born in Paris, France, October 30, 1839 ("Alfred Sisley the

Complete Works"). At the age of 18, Sisley was sent to London to study for a career in business ("Alfred Sisley the Complete Works"). It was in London that he was inspired by the work of English landscape painters: Turner, Constable, and Bonnington. He joined other Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (“Alfred Sisley”). Together they painted landscapes “in plain air” to realistically capture the effects of sunlight (Stevens 312). This new method created more colorful and more broadly painted than the public was used to seeing.

He moved back to Paris after only four years of living in London (“Alfred

Sisley”). In 1866, he began a relationship with Eugenie Lesouezec, they had two children together ("Alfred Sisley the Complete Works"). In 1870 his father’s business failed, and he could no longer send Alfred money (“Alfred Sisley”). Alfred lost all of his financial security, and fell into poverty. Alfred’s new family had to live off the small painting sales ("Alfred Sisley the Complete Works").

In 1880, Sisley and his family moved to a small village near the forest of

Fontainebleau, where the painters of the Barbizon school had worked earlier in the century (Stevens 312). In 1897, Sisley and Eugenie visited Wales and were finally married in Cardiff Register Office in August (Stevens 312). Sisley died at age 59, in

Moret-sur-Loing, on January 29, 1899, of throat cancer, just a few months after the death of his wife (Stevens 312). Soon after his death, his paintings became wildly popular and were worth a large amount of money.

Sisley used lots of oil paints on canvas to portray his complex landscapes

("Alfred Sisley the Complete Works"). He was an impressionist landscape painter; his body of work is very light, and colorful just like Claude Monet’s body of work.

While Monet began to incorporate urban scenes into his art, and Renoir began to create a new kind of portrait, Sisley's style changed very little as he moved from town to town and painted the new landscapes he encountered (“Sisley, Alfred”). One of the impressionists he resembles the most is Camille Pissarro, even though he was overshadowed by Monet ("Alfred Sisley the Complete Works"). They both try to capture the landscape when it is bright and full of colors.

In a lot of Sisley’s Landscape paintings the subject matter is the buildings, or the trees, but in “Langland Bay Storrs Rock Morning” the whole painting is centered around the rock as the subject matter. His composition in this piece is very interesting because the background is bland, but then there is a large rock placed directly in the center of the painting. In most of his paintings, you will see that he portrays the scenery in a vibrant, colorful way so it seems real. Most of his pieces give off a happy or excited feeling because of the many colors. He tries to show the beauty of the piece, and his experiences through his life.

Sisley was greatly influenced by his friends Renoir, and Monet in his selection of colors; Sisley was less daring than Monet in his use of the "rainbow palette," and closer to the Barbizon School tradition (“Sisley, Alfred”). The event that gave Impressionism its name was the Impressionist Exhibition of 1874, which featured a number of Sisley's works. Although the impressionist landscape painters Sisley became friends with were using bright colors too, they were painting more modern scenery and buildings. Alfred was unique because aside from his friends in London, all of the other landscape paintings were bland, and boring, they had never seen any art like Sisley’s (“Sisley, Alfred”). There were impressionist landscape painters in

Alfred Sisley’s time era, but their art was all the same plain colors. Sisley put very bright and beautiful colors in his landscape, which no one had tried to do before. He was one of the first founders of impressionism, but even then his paintings sold cheap.

There have been many worldly events that have influenced Alfred Sisley.

When his family forced him to go to London to pursue a career in business, which is where he became inspired by London’s beauty. It was because he was forced away to

London that he met many other great artists like: Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

When the 1870 Franco-Prussian War began, Sisley's father's business failed, and Sisley was forced to live only on his painting income ("Alfred Sisley the Complete

Works"). This forced him to work harder, and paint a lot more of the rolling hills and bushy trees of London (Stevens 312).

He was very influenced by Camille Pissarro, which is why their bodies of work look very similar in the colors used, and the style. When they were in London they painted together, and became very good friends (Stevens 312). He was mainly influenced by the pure beauty of London.

Alfred Sisley was incredibly creative and bold for his time. With his colleagues he revolutionized the art of impressionist landscapes. People didn’t like his new bright form of impressionism until after he died, then his wonderful talent was finally recognized. It was very challenging to create impressionist landscapes, and not many people liked them. He didn’t sell a lot of paintings, and when he did they sold for very cheap. It is sad that people couldn’t see the beauty in his paintings because they were different from everything else.

His organization of each piece is very bold, and draws your eyes exactly to where he wants the main focus to be using lots of color and contrast. The main focus point of most of his pieces is either on the right, or left like in “Moret-sur-Loing.”

Your eyes are automatically drawn to the left, because of the building and darker colors. He doesn’t have many pieces where your eye is drawn to the center, top, or bottom. I think that is because something placed directly in the center of the painting is boring. So, he places things to the left, or right to make it more visually interesting.

I think the main reason why he doesn’t place the subject matter on the top, or bottom of the piece is because then there is just too much space everywhere else and it makes the piece awkward. He is very careful and particular about where he places the subject matter, and all the little pieces building the composition to make each piece visually interesting. I think that he was very daring and brave to try using a new way to create art, and beautiful landscapes. Even though people didn’t like his way of art as much as others, he stuck with it and made beautiful pieces the way he wanted. The war it was tough on him in many ways, and he had to support his family solely on his paintings.

He worked very hard, and was able to support his family the way they needed. He pushed himself to see art in ways others could not see. Although he was mainly known for his impressionist landscape oil paintings he also made many beautiful pastels, and other sketches (“Sisley, Alfred”).

Alfred Sisley is very important to me because he knew how he wanted each piece to look, and didn’t care if others didn’t like the way he did it. It is very inspiring to me to see how even though he was criticized and suffered hardships during the war that he never gave up. It’s hard to see him spend so much time working with the form of impressionist landscapes, making so many beautiful pieces only to be criticized and earn little money. I think it is very important that we have impressionist landscapes because they are very beautiful and dynamic. Sisley had produced about 900 oil paintings, 100 pastels, and many other drawings even though he only lived to be 59 years old. Alfred Sisley is very important in art history and is now famous for his creative way of seeing landscapes. After his passing his work has become wildly popular and famous. Lots of people have tried to copy, or reproduce his paintings since that time, but no one can truly reproduce the beauty of his pieces. The straw Rent

Banks of the Loing at Saint Mammès

Gelée Blanche - Été de la Saint Martin

Path at Sablons

Bibliography

Websites:

“Alfred Sisley." 2012. Biography.com 20 Jul 2012,

.

"Alfred Sisley Biography." Alfred Sisley the Complete Works. N.p., 2012. Web. 20 Jul

2012. .

"Sisley, Alfred." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. 20 Jul.

2012 .

Books:

Stevens, MaryAnne. Alfred Sisley. 2nd ed. 1. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. 312.

Print.