Place Lafayette, Rouen

In the autumn of 1883 Pissarro, then 53, spent about three months in Rouen and came away with more than a dozen paintings. What drew him was not the great Gothic cathedral that Monet would obsess over a decade later, but the working river. From an upper window he looked down on the quays of the Seine, the ships, the factory chimneys, the smoke and mist hanging over the water. He told his family the city had terrific character and was as beautiful as Venice. This view down onto Place Lafayette is built from short hatched strokes that catch the pale northern light as it moves across the wet pavement and the rooftops of a busy port.