Haymakers Resting

Held at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, this 1891 canvas shows haymakers resting — a labor-and-leisure subject that belongs to Pissarro's transition from Neo-Impressionism back to a freer Impressionist approach. He had adopted Seurat's divisionist technique in 1885 under the influence of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, and by 1891 was moving away from it, finding the systematic dot application too mechanical. Haymakers Resting shows figures in the Éragny landscape relaxing from agricultural work, a subject that combines his social commitment with landscape interest. The transition in style visible here anticipates the more fluid, gestural work of his final decade.

The work shows traces of the divisionist influence — a more systematic dot-like application of color in some passages — combined with the looser, freer touch that Pissarro was reclaiming from his pre-Neo-Impressionist practice. The figures are modeled with more gestural marks than in his fully divisionist work, showing the transition underway.