Autour de la forêt, matinée de juillet

Held in the Schorr Collection, this 1889 canvas shows the forest around Moret on a July morning — capturing the specific quality of midsummer woodland in the Fontainebleau region. The Forest of Fontainebleau had been a center of French landscape painting since the Barbizon school in the 1840s, and Sisley's engagement with it in the late 1880s placed him in a long tradition of artists working this ancient oak and sandstone forest. A July morning in forest brings strong dappled light and deep shadows, creating the most dramatic tonal contrasts of the landscape year. Sisley navigated these conditions with his characteristic atmospheric sensitivity.

Forest interior light creates deep contrasts between sunlit clearings and shadowed canopy. Sisley renders the forest with varied, confident marks — deep green in shadow, warm gold where sunlight penetrates. The characteristic wide sky he favored is here reduced, enclosed by the forest canopy, giving the work a more intimate, enclosed atmosphere than his open landscape views.