![]() ![]() This is one of the earliest paintings remaining from the start of Sisley’s career. Alfred Sisley (1839–1899), A Lane near a Small Town (c 1864), oil on canvas, 45 x 59.5 cm, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen. Sisley had started painting en plein air in the old haunts of the Barbizon School in 1861, and was soon painting outdoors in company with the other budding Impressionists. ![]() ![]() Among his fellow students were Pierre-August Renoir, who had already been there a year, Frédéric Bazille, who joined shortly after Sisley, and for a period in the following Spring, Claude Monet. Once he returned to his family in Paris in 1860-1, he had to convince them of his new career, then in the autumn of 1862 he started classes in Charles Gleyre’s studio. He was destined to take over the family business, and in pursuit of that was sent to London to study in 1857, where apparently he was so moved by the paintings of JMW Turner and John Constable that he resolved to be an artist instead. Sisley was born and brought up in a prosperous Anglo-French family who were merchants in Paris. Today I turn to look at Alfred Sisley (1839–1899), who was nine years younger than Pissarro. He and his fellow Impressionists blazed a trail for the next generation, led by the native Welsh artists Augustus John and James Dickson Innes.Yesterday I looked at the start of Camille Pissarro’s career with a selection of his paintings prior to the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Sisley's vision marks a fundamental change in the interpretation of the Welsh landscape, replacing the Romantic outlook of Turner and his successors. On 4 October 1897 an article in the French paper Le Journal observed: "The Impressionist master has brought back from Penarth and Langland Bay a series of admirable sea pieces, in which the strange flavour of that landscape, little frequented by painters, is rendered with an art that is as captivating as it is personal." It depicts low tide, with the rocks of Ranny Point and Lavernock Point clearly visible. The evening light rakes sharply from the west, casting a mauvish shadow from the steep cliff over the beach below. La falaise a Penarth is one of these southward looking views. Two show the view northwards up the Bristol Channel and three show the view southwards looking along the cliff's edge towards Lavernock. One shows a tree at the cliff's edge with shipping and Penarth Pier in the background. Six Penarth views have so far been identified. The Penarth seascapes are more atmospheric than the Langland views, which capture the intense heat and light of the Gower Peninsula. Sisley's 19 or so oil paintings of Penarth and Langland Bay near Swansea (where he stayed from 15 August until his return to Moret on 1 October) are his only sea pieces and show the energy and excitement of a new discovery. I hope to make good use of what I see around me and to return to Moret in October, or thereabouts". The climate is very mild, and has indeed been too hot these last few days, especially now as I write. I am very comfortable here, 'in lodgings' with some very decent folk. I don't know how long I shall stay at Penarth. The countryside is very pretty and the Roads with the big ships sailing into and out of Cardiff, is superb. ![]() On 16 July he wrote "I have been here for a week. In the summer of 1897, Sisley visited south Wales, staying at 4 Clive Place, Penarth and on 5 August he married Eugenié Lescouezec at Cardiff Town Hall. He never enjoyed the success of his friends Monet, Renoir and Pissarro and in 1882 he withdrew to the small town of Moret-sur-Loing near Fontainebleau, where he worked for the rest of his career, dying there in 1899. Sisley participated in three of the next seven shows organized by the Impressionists between 18. In 1874, this group mounted the show that has gone down in history as the 'First Impressionist Exhibition'. The first Impressionist exhibitionīorn in Paris in 1839 to British parents, Alfred Sisley became a leading member of the circle of young painters who stood in opposition to the traditional art taught at the French Académie. Sisley's coastal views of 1897 are the only pictures of Wales ever painted by a leading Impressionist. Within the Museum's art collections is a view of the south Wales coast painted by Alfred Sisley - La falaise a Penarth, le soir, marée basse ('The cliff at Penarth, the evening, low tide'). The view at the same location today Sisley and south Wales ![]()
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