Alfred Sisley
English Impressionist
1839-1899
 Alfred
Sisley was an English
Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of
his life in France. Sisley is recognized as perhaps the most
consistent of the Impressionists, never deviating into figure
painting or finding that the movement did not fulfill his artistic
needs. Alfred Sisley's works can be distinguished from those of his
colleagues by their softly harmonious values. His early style was
much influenced by Camille Corot, and his restricted and delicate
palette continued to reflect something of Corot's silvery
tonalities. His snow scapes, such as "Snow at Louveciennes" (shown
here) are particularly effective.Alfred Sisley was born in Paris as the son of rich English parents on October 30, 1839. His father William Sisley was in the silk business, and his mother, Felicia Sell, was a cultivated music connoisseur. At the age of 18, after his basic education, Alfred Sisley was sent back to England to enhance his knowledge of the English language and to become a successful businessman like his father. Alfred Sisley however took the opportunity to study the works of John Constable and William Turner. Sisley wasn't attracted to the business-world and returned to Paris at age 23. His father supported him and decided to send him to the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Charles Gleyre. |
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Alfred Sisley became acquainted with Frédéric Bazille,
Claude
Monet, and
Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Together they would paint landscapes
en plein air (in the open air) in order to realistically capture
the transient effects of sunlight. This approach, innovative at the
time, resulted in paintings more colorful and more broadly painted
than the public was accustomed to seeing. Consequently, Sisley and
his friends initially had few opportunities to exhibit or sell their
work. In 1866,Alfred Sisley began a relationship with Eugénie
Lesouezec (also known as Marie Lescouezec), a Breton living in
Paris, with whom he had two children.
 Alfred
Sisley's style at this time was deeply influenced by Courbet and
Daubigny, and when he first exhibited at the Salon in 1867 it was as
the pupil of Corot. By this time he had started to frequent the Café
Guerbois, and was becoming more deeply influenced by the notions
which were creating Impressionism. Sisley's landscape at the
Salon of 1868, "Avenue of Chestnut Trees near La Celle
Saint-Cloud "(shown here), demonstrates an acquaintance with the
soft tonality of Corot and the dramatic massing of Courbet, both
of
whom were to remain influential. During Franco-Prussian War Sisley
lost all his possessions when the Prussian army overran the family’s
estate in Bougival, west of Paris. After the war his father was
ruined, so the artist was left in desperate poverty for many years.
Of the artists who exhibited at the first Impressionist exhibition
in 1874, it was Alfred Sisley who was the purest landscape painter.
At the first Impressionist exhibition, Sisley exhibited six
landscapes (only five appeared in the catalogue) with little
critical or financial success . |
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 |
 After
the exhibition Sisley returned to England, this time under the
patronage of the French baritone Jean-Baptiste Faure, from July to
October 1874. In London he painted a series of canvases at Hampton
Court which are remarkably fresh and spontaneous. "Molesey Weir,
Hampton Court" (shown here) is compositionally daring with the
posts of the weir creating a system of rigid verticals which holds
the picture together and leads the viewer's eye into the picture
space in no less a contrived way than Poussin might have done. Yet
it appears relaxed and informal with thick white impasto, and the
figures of the naked bathers are executed with great economy of
means. Towards the end of the decade Monet was beginning to have a
considerable influence on Alfred Sisley, and a series of landscape
paintings of the area around Paris, including Marly, Bougival and
Louveciennes (shown at top of page), shows the way in which his
dominant and evident lyricism still respects the demands of the
subject-matter.In 1880 Sisley and his family moved to a small village near Moret-sur-Loing, close to the forest of Fontainebleau where the painters of the Barbizon school had worked earlier in the century. Here, as art historian Anne Poulet has said, "the gentle landscapes with their constantly changing atmosphere were perfectly attuned to his talents". Unlike Monet, he never sought the drama of the rampaging ocean or the brilliantly colored scenery of the Côte d'Azur At the end of is life, Sisley was heavily sick due to cancer. It was only then that he started to get some recognition for the work he had done. Alfred Sisley died at the age of 59, January 29, 1899 in Moret-sur-Loing. |
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