Printemps à Veneux-Nadon

Veneux-Nadon, a hamlet near Moret-sur-Loing, became one of Sisley's primary working grounds in the early 1880s, and this spring canvas dates from that period when he was still painting with the optimism of Impressionism's high decade. He settled in the area in 1880 after the collapse of his family's textile fortune forced him to abandon Paris, and the meadows and orchards along the Loing gave him his subject matter for the rest of his life. Spring canvases from Veneux-Nadon are among his freshest work — the light is not yet harsh, the greens not yet heavy — and they show why Pissarro considered Sisley the purest landscapist of the group, uncorrupted by ambition for large-scale figure subjects.

The composition is built on layered horizontal bands of meadow, tree line, and sky, with the paint applied in loose, varied strokes that break up the picture surface without losing the sense of aerial continuity. Fresh greens mixed with yellow and white capture the transparency of early spring foliage.