The Seine at Bougival

By 1876 Alfred Sisley was living just west of Paris, along the stretch of the Seine that the railway had turned into weekend country for city people. Bougival, the town in this view, was one of those riverside resorts, busy with boating and bathing on fine days. Sisley left most of that out. Only a few figures sit here, a woman and child on the grass near the still water, and the mood is closer to an ordinary afternoon than a holiday. What organises the whole scene is the stand of trees, leaned into a loose V that carries the eye down the river. He painted this same bend of the Seine repeatedly through 1876.