A Crossroads at L'Hermitage, Pontoise

This 1876 canvas at the MuMa in Le Havre shows a rural crossroads at L'Hermitage, the hillside district above Pontoise where Pissarro lived during much of the 1870s. L'Hermitage was a semi-rural neighbourhood of small farms, gardens, and orchards that gave Pissarro an endlessly varied subject within walking distance of his home. The crossroads with its dirt road and scattered trees represents the kind of ordinary, unpicturesque subject that distinguished Impressionist landscape from academic scenic painting — there is no dramatic view, no famous monument, just the ordinary countryside observed with sustained attention.

Pissarro renders the dirt road in warm ochre and sienna tones, the scattered trees in varied greens against a blue-grey sky. The composition is deceptively casual — the crossing roads create a simple geometric structure beneath the organic complexity of the trees and light. Brushwork is structured and attentive.