Die Grande Rue in Argenteuil

In 1872 the painters who would soon be called Impressionists were drifting out to the villages along the Seine just west of Paris, where Monet had taken a house, to paint ordinary modern life instead of grand subjects. This is a plain suburban high street on a bright day, houses and small shops running back toward a tower in the distance, a few people going about their errands. Sisley worked it out in front of the motif, with quick strokes for the sunlight on the road and the shadows falling across it. There is some doubt now about which town it actually shows, and it once carried a different place-name. What it plainly is, is a quiet street on a good morning, painted for its own sake.