Сена в Аржантёе (1872)

By 1872 the fighting was over. France had lost the war with Prussia the year before, Paris had gone through the bloody weeks of the Commune, and painters were drifting back out to the river towns to work again. Argenteuil, a few miles down the Seine from the city, was one of those places, a Sunday spot for sailing and rowing, with factory chimneys already creeping in behind the poplars. Sisley painted the water here as a calm, ordinary afternoon, boats resting near the bank under a wide pale sky. He kept the brushwork loose and the colours quiet, blues and greens and river browns. The canvas later passed to Jean Faure, a doctor from Aix-les-Bains who loved the Impressionists, and he left it to his home town, where it hangs today.