La neige à Port-Marly

La neige à Port-Marly depicts the snow-covered village of Port-Marly on the Seine, west of Paris — a location with particular significance in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist history, as Sisley had painted the famous Port-Marly floods there in 1876. Maufra's 1902 snow scene invokes that tradition while asserting his own Post-Impressionist sensibility. Port-Marly's proximity to Paris made it a convenient plein-air destination for artists based in the capital who wanted to paint rural winter light without traveling to Brittany. Now in the Museum of Fine Arts of Reims, the work shows Maufra translating the chalky luminosity of a snow scene through his particular brand of Synthetist color.

Maufra handles the snow-covered landscape with a palette of whites, pale blues, and warm grays, using visible brushwork to differentiate the textures of snow-laden rooftops from open ground. His flattening of space is more pronounced than in the naturalistic Impressionist snow scenes he references.