Paysage de Normandie, Bazincourt

Paysage de Normandie, Bazincourt (1897), now in the Musée Lambinet, depicts the Norman countryside around Bazincourt-sur-Epte — the same village where Camille Pissarro lived and painted throughout the late 1880s and 1890s. Luce's choice to paint in Bazincourt is a direct expression of his connection to the Pissarro circle: Camille Pissarro had made Éragny-sur-Epte, adjacent to Bazincourt, his permanent home in 1884, and the flat, open Norman landscape around the Epte river valley became inseparable from his divisionist period. That Luce painted the same landscape in 1897 reflects both personal friendship — he knew the Pissarro family well — and artistic dialogue: he was engaging with terrain that had already been thoroughly explored by one of the movement's central figures. The Norman landscape offered wide views, changing skies, and the gentle light of northern France, demanding a different coloristic approach from the saturated southern palette Luce would later adopt. The panel support indicates this was a plein-air sketch rather than a large studio work.

The Norman landscape is rendered with a cooler, more restrained palette than Luce's Provençal or industrial subjects — the gentle northern light requires muted tonal differences and a predominance of green and grey. Panel support suggests rapid outdoor execution.