The Town Fair by the Church of Saint-Jacques in Dieppe, Morning, Sunlight

By 1901 Pissarro was in his early seventies and could no longer work the way he had as a young man, out in the open air. A chronic infection in one eye made wind and dust a real risk, so more and more he painted from windows. That summer he came to Dieppe, on the Normandy coast, and took a room looking down onto the square beside the church of Saint-Jacques. A town fair had filled it with stalls and crowds, and he painted the same view over and over as the light shifted, morning into afternoon, nine or ten canvases in a matter of weeks. This is the morning one. The sun is still low, and the crowd below is only starting to gather by the old church.