Rue de L´Hermitage, Pontoise

After the Franco-Prussian War, Pissarro settled in Pontoise for good, and for most of the next ten years he lived in l'Hermitage, a poor hamlet on the hills above the town. This is its main road. He had grander subjects within easy reach, the wide river Oise and its barges, yet he kept coming back to these modest houses, their garden walls, and figures going about an ordinary morning. Village lanes had long been painted as quaint decoration. Pissarro treats this one plainly, as the place where he and his neighbours actually lived. The road runs from the foot of the canvas straight back between the houses, drawing the eye uphill into the hamlet.