The Seine at Bougival

Sisley painted this stretch of the Seine at Bougival in 1873, the year before he and his friends Monet, Renoir and Pissarro put on the show that got them mocked as Impressionists. Bougival sat about ten miles downstream from Paris, an easy trip out for city people who came to boat and stroll along the water on Sundays. Sisley leaves most of that bustle out. He gives the riverbank only a few small figures and lets a stand of trees lean across the scene in a loose V, opening the eye to the pale sky and the water beyond. Of the whole group he stayed the most faithful to plain landscape, and this quiet bend of the river is a good example. It is in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.