Chemin de By au bois des Roches-Courtaut, été de la St Martin

Alfred Sisley was born in Paris to English parents and spent most of his career in the forests and river valleys south of the capital. This 1881 canvas depicting the Chemin de By — a forest path in the Fontainebleau area near the hamlet of By where Sisley lived — shows his characteristic treatment of woodland light filtering through trees in the warm season. Sisley was the most consistently lyrical of the Impressionists, his attention drawn to the interplay of light, sky, and water or foliage. The forest paths around Fontainebleau had been central to Barbizon painting before him, and Sisley reinterpreted them through Impressionist light while retaining something of their meditative quietude.

Sisley uses a warm, dappled palette to render the autumn light filtering through the forest canopy. The path provides a simple compositional recession into depth. Brushwork is fluid and varied — the foliage built in layered touches of ochre, gold, and warm green, the path in the soft sienna of bare earth.