Kew Greens

Held at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, this 1892 canvas shows Kew Gardens in London — made during one of Pissarro's return visits to England. Kew, with its famous botanical gardens and park, offered a very English landscape subject: formal gardens, large trees, and the particular green-grey quality of English parkland light. He had first painted near London during his 1870–71 exile and returned periodically, always finding the English light both different and stimulating. By 1892 he had been through his Neo-Impressionist phase and was returning to freer Impressionism, and the Kew work shows this more relaxed approach applied to an English subject.

The English parkland light creates a cool, moist quality distinct from his French landscapes. Pissarro's post-divisionist brushwork of the early 1890s is looser and more varied than his Neo-Impressionist years, allowing for freer response to the specific qualities of Kew's gardens. Cool greens and grey-blue sky dominate the palette.