Alfred Sisley (1839-1899)
Alfred Sisley was born in Paris in 1839 to English parents, William Sisley and Felicia Sell. While studying business in London from 1857 until 1861, he admired paintings of John Constable and Joseph Mallord William Turner, which convinced him that his calling was that of an artist.
On his return to Paris, his family supported his decision and allowed him to enroll at the atelier of Swiss painter Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre, where he became acquainted with Frederic Bazille, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In their company, he started to frequent the Café Guerbois, and became more deeply influenced by the notions which were creating Impressionism. It was the rebellious outing of these four friends into the forest at Fontainbleau that set the stage for what was to become known as the Impressionist Movement.
Together they would paint landscapes en plein air which resulted in paintings more colourful and spontaneous than the public had been accustomed to seeing. Sisley's paintings, mainly of scenes near Paris, were gentle and idyllic with soft, harmonious colours.
Although Sisley's work attracted little attention in his lifetime, its importance has since been recognized and his landscape paintings occupy an inviolable position in the history of early Impressionism. His work strongly invokes atmosphere and his skies are always very impressive. His concentration on landscape subjects was the most consistent of any of the Impressionists. His depictions of the Seine at Bougival, the St. Martin Canal, the Seine in flood, and the snow-bound suburbs of Paris are indispensable to an account of Impressionist landscape painting in the 1870s.
© Copyright 2005 Paul van Rensburg.
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Sisley was a veteran of Impressionism, exhibiting with them in 1874, 1876, 1877 and 1882. At the Exhibition of 1900, in the two rooms reserved for the works of this school, there were to be seen a dozen of Sisley's canvases. By the side of the finest Renoirs, Monets and Manets they kept their singular charm and brilliancy, and this was a revelation for many critics as to the real place of this artist, whom they had formerly regarded as a pretty colourist of only relative importance.
Sisley's student works are unfortunately lost and his earliest known work, Lane near a Small Town is believed to have been painted around 1864.
In the late 1860s, he entered into a relationship with Eugenie Lescouezec, which lasted for over 30 years and produced two offspring. During the Franco-Prussian War in the early 1870s, Sisley spent some time in London where he was introduced to Durand-Ruel by Pissarro, becoming part of that dealer's stable. He began to sell his works very late, and throughout his life he commanded lower prices than his friends. In the mean time, his father had lost all his money as a result of the war, and Sisley was reduced to extreme poverty. He had to support himself and his family through modest sales of his work and, not being one for self-promotion, he never gained the recognition he deserved.
In 1876 Sisley moved to Moret-sur-Loing, a beautiful little town that has changed little in nearly a century and where one can still view the sites he immortalized in paint as well as the house in which he died. He died in 1899 at the age of 59, just a few months after the death of his partner.
By 1870, Sisley had adopted the short rapid Impressionist brushstroke and like Monet remained faithful to the technique throughout his career. Unlike Monet, however, he preserved distinctive forms that did not fade into the atmosphere, and he was more interested in capturing the movement of foliage, the shimmer of water, and the texture of cloud-filled skies than in recording atmospheric changes in light and the subsequent results.
Primarily a landscapist, Sisley preferred the countryside around the Ile-de-France with its unique and subtle beauty in all seasons. To this he brought a soft, muted palette with warm greens, blue-greens, pale yellows, and clear blues predominating. Two of his best known works are Street in Moret and Sand Heaps.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/sisley/
http://artchive.com/artchive/S/sisley.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Sisley
http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/sisley/sisley_bio.htm
http://www.3d-dali.com/Artist-Biographies/Alfred_Sisley.html
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