A Cowherd at Valhermeil, Auvers-sur-Oise

Pissarro made this in 1874, the same year he and his friends mounted the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris and drew the scorn of the critics. You can see the new manner in it. The brushwork is loose and broken, the light kept high and soft, the kind of touch he was picking up from younger colleagues like Monet. The place was home ground. He lived near Pontoise, northwest of Paris, for years, and painted some 20 views around this hamlet of Valhermeil, several of them featuring the same red-roofed house. There is no drama here, just a cowherd and cattle on a country road, the ordinary rural work that Pissarro cared about more than grand subjects.