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Provenance: Property from a Private Trust
Ernest May, Paris (sold: Galerie
Georges Petit, Paris, June 4, 1890, lot 55)
Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired
at the above sale)
Edward Lester Brewster, Chicago (acquired from the
above on June 5, 1890)
Durand-Ruel, New York (acquired from the
above on May 4, 1926)
Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above)
Durand-Ruel, New York (acquired from the above on September 27,
1926)
Gerald Brooks, New York (acquired from the above on April 13,
1928)
Marie Harriman Gallery, New York (acquired from the above by
1939 and until at least 1940)
Sam Salz, New York
Private Collection
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Notes: Exhibited:
New York, Durand-Ruel Gallery, Exhibitions of
Paintings by the Impressionists, 1926, no. 14 (titled La Grande
route)
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Landscape Paintings, 1934, no. 52 (titled La Grande
Route)
San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor,
Seven Centuries of Painting, 1939-40, no. L-133 (titled The
Main Road)
New York, World's Fair, Masterpieces of
Art, 1940, no. 325 (titled La Grande Route)
New
York, Wildenstein & Co., Camille Pissarro, His Place in Art,
1945, no. 4
The Arts Club of Chicago, Paintings by Camille
Pissarro, 1946, no. 16
New York, Wildenstein & Co., C.
Pissarro, 1965, no. 8
New York, Wildenstein & Co., One
Hundred Years of Impressionism, 1970, no. 9
New York,
Wildenstein & Co., Nature as Scene: French Landscape Painting from
Poussin to Bonnard, 1975, no. 49
Literature:
Adolphe Tabarant, Camille
Pissarro, Paris, 1924, discussed p. 53
J.C. Holl,
"Pissarro," L'Art et les Artistes, Paris,
February 1928, p. 147 (titled La Grande Route)
Ludovic
Rodo Pissarro and Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro, son art - son
oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1939, no. 118, catalogued p. 96; vol. II, no.
118, illustrated pl. 24
"Camille Pissarro: His Place in Art Shown at
the Wildenstein Galleries," Pictures on Exhibit, New York,
November 1945, illustrated p. 9
Fernando Puma, Modern Art Looks
Ahead, New York, 1947, illustrated p. 75
Nils G. Wollin and
Thomas Paulsson, "Kring impressionismen: Två granskare om en
nyutkommen avhandling," Konsthistorisk Tidskrift,
Stockholm, August 1953, illustrated p. 23
Ralph T. Coe, "Camille
Pissarro's Jardin des Mathurins: An Inquiry into
Impressionist Composition," The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum
Bulletin, Kansas City, Spring 1963, illustrated p. 7
John
Rewald, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1963, illustrated p. 77
Linda Nochlin, "Camille Pissarro: The unassuming Eye,"
Art News, New York, April 1965, illustrated p. 25
Charles
Kunstler, Camille Pissarro, villes et campagnes, Lausanne,
1966, illustrated p. 11
Charles Kunstler, Camille Pissarro,
Milan, 1971, illustrated p. 17
Pataky Dénes, Camille
Pissarro, Budapest, 1972, illustrated pl. 21
John Rewald,
The History of Impressionism, New York, 1973, illustrated p.
264
René Huyghe, La Relève du réel: la peinture française au XIXe
siècle: impressionnisme, symbolisme, Paris, 1974, discussed p. 455
Sophie Monneret, L'Impressionnisme et son
époque, vol. II, Paris, 1979, discussed p. 42
De Renoir á
Vuillard: Marly-le-Roi, Louveciennes, leurs environs... (exhibition
catalogue), Musée Promenade de Marly-le-Roi-Louveciennes, 1984, illustrated
p. 131
John Rewald, Camille Pissarro, London, 1991,
illustrated p. 57
Joachim Pissarro, Camille Pissarro, New
York, 1992, illustrated pl. 6
Joachim Pissarro, Camille
Pissarro, New York, 1993, no. 61, illustrated p. 66
In
1869, Pissarro settled with his family in the middle-class suburb of
Louveciennes, southwest of Paris on the road to Versailles. There, he found
himself in close proximity to Monet, who lived at St. Michel, and Renoir, who
resided in Voisins, a nearby hamlet. Working along the banks of the Seine,
the artists indulged their affinity for plein-air painting, focusing
on the effects of sunlight flickering across the water and the surrounding
landscape. Together they experimented with the use of color to represent
shadow, and honed their painting technique to capture the effects of light.
According to Joachim Pissarro, ''Two notions summarize in a
general way what Pissarro's Louveciennes period was about: shadow
and structure. The shadows point to the immaterial, the perpetually
changing, and yet plastically unavoidable mark of things; they can be
shadows of trees, Groves of Chestnut Trees at Louveciennes
(see fig. 2), Chestnut Trees at Louveciennes, Spring (see fig.
3), The Road to Rocquencourt [the present work], or of trees,
buildings, and figures...Structures are provided by the street contexts,
inducing the gaze of the viewer inside the picture plane through their
sidewalks, whose street-edge lines never quite meet'' (Joachim
Pissarro, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1993, p. 66).
Pissarro delighted in representing rural life, a theme he explored
throughout much of his career, and the activity surrounding the roads into
Louveciennes provided inspiration for many paintings, including the present
work. As noted by Ralph Shikes and Paula Harper, ''He painted
familiar scenes around Louveciennes: local residents strolling along the
peaceful, tree-lined roads in all seasons and weather. The roadway seen in
perspective fascinated him, as it had Corot, as a device for composition of
the picture and a surface for reflecting the nuances of light and
shade'' (Ralph E. Shikes and Paula Harper, Pissarro, His Life
and Work, New York, 1980, p. 83). In most of Pissarro's
paintings from the Louveciennes period, the artist has cropped the breadth of
his visual field, attesting to his experiments with perspectival devices. La
Route de Rocquencourt is unique in that it is one of the few
paintings from this period in which Pissarro wholly embraces the landscape
around him. Rather than focusing on the activity of human subjects, he has
reduced them to a diminutive size, emphasizing instead the majestic sky and
the long shadows cast by the autumn sun that allude to the continual change
of seasons and the endless cycle of night and day.
Accompanied
by the most progressive artists in 19th century France, Pissarro's
sojourn in Louveciennes was highly productive, albeit short-lived. In
September of 1870 the Franco-Prussian War encroached upon the areas
surrounding Paris, and Pissarro and his family were compelled to seek refuge
at the estate of his friend Ludovic Piette in Montfoucault, and then with his
mother in England. Although the Prussian troops occupied the artist's
home in Louveciennes during his absence, and destroyed over three hundred
of the artist's canvases, Pissarro vigorously resumed painting upon his
return in June 1871. His exposure in England to the works of John Constable
(see fig. 4) and J.M.W. Turner fostered his analysis of perspective and effects
of natural light. The atmospheric quality of these artists' paintings
encouraged Pissarro to continue his examination of light and nature, resulting
in a maturity of style that is reflected in La Route de
Rocquencourt. His palette is lighter, imbued with the subtle
gradations of light and shade, and his ability to achieve aesthetic balance
within a geometric, symmetrical composition exudes a new confidence. By
the time Pissarro moved to Pontoise in August of 1872, he had completed a
series of paintings that capture the essence of life around Louveciennes, and
secured his place in history as one of the founders of Impressionist painting.
Comparables
Fig. 1, The artist circa 1895
Fig. 2, Camille Pissarro, Bois de chataigniers á
Louveciennes, 1872, oil on canvas, Private Collection
Fig. 3,
Camille Pissarro, Chataigniers á Louveciennes (printemps),
1870, oil on canvas, The Langmatt Foundation, Sidney and Jenny Brown,
Baden, Switzerland
Fig. 4, J.M.W. Turner, View of Orvieto
1828, oil on canvas, Tate Gallery, London
Fig. 5, John Constable,
Hampstead Heath, circa 1820, oil on canvas,
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
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