The Loing Canal, Moret

Pissarro painted the canal town of Moret-sur-Loing on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau on visits to the region, where his friend Alfred Sisley also painted extensively. The Loing canal paintings of Moret represent Pissarro working in shared artistic territory with Sisley — both were attracted to the small medieval town with its fortified gates and canal reflections — but where Sisley's Moret paintings tend toward lyrical atmospheric effect, Pissarro's approach is more structural. The canal itself, with its controlled water and geometric reflections, suited his interest in organised landscape.

The canal surface provides a horizontal reflective element that Pissarro works with his most careful water-handling technique, the reflections of buildings and sky captured in slightly blurred, vertical strokes that distinguish reflected from solid. The medieval town architecture in the background provides warm stone tones in ochres and pinks, contrasting with the cool greens and blues of the water.