Pontoise, the Road to Gisors in Winter

Painted in winter 1873 near Pontoise, this Museum of Fine Arts, Boston canvas shows the road to Gisors — a market town visible from Pontoise — under snow. Winter was a consistently important season for Pissarro, who painted snow landscapes throughout his career and found in the muted, tonally simplified winter palette a vehicle for some of his most refined atmospheric work. The road stretching into the distance and the bare trees lining it provide a classic Realist-Impressionist composition inherited from Corot's road paintings but energized with Pissarro's more textured, attentive brushwork.

Pissarro renders the snow-covered road in broken white and pale blue strokes, with the tyre and hoof tracks cutting dark accents through the surface. The bare poplar and elm trees are indicated with upward, branching marks. The horizon is low, giving maximum sky — pale grey with hints of winter blue. The composition uses perspective recession along the road.