The Church at Moret, Frosty Weather

Sisley painted the church at Moret-sur-Loing more than a dozen times from different viewpoints and under different weather conditions, making it the nearest thing in his oeuvre to the serial motif study that Monet was perfecting with his haystacks and Rouen Cathedral at exactly the same period. This 1893 frosty-weather version, now in the Kunstmuseum Bern, belongs to his most systematic engagement with the motif, exploring how the medieval stone facade changes under varying light and atmospheric conditions. The church's grey limestone proved a superb register of atmospheric effects, its surface colour shifting from warm gold to cool blue depending on weather and season.

The frosty atmosphere is communicated through a high, bleached light that flattens the relief of the stone facade and cools the shadows to a blue-grey. Sisley's brushwork across the architectural surfaces is more disciplined than in his open landscape passages, tracking the geometry of the masonry while maintaining Impressionist freshness of touch.