A Square in Caracas

Painted in 1854, this oil at the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros shows a square in Caracas, Venezuela — one of the very few surviving works from Pissarro's Venezuelan period. He had traveled to Venezuela with the Danish painter Fritz Melbye in 1852, spending two years in Caracas and its surroundings. This tropical city square would have been utterly unlike anything in his later European oeuvre; the tropical light, colonial architecture, and diverse urban population of Caracas offered subjects with no parallel in the Seine valley. This canvas is historically remarkable as one of the earliest surviving works by a man who would become one of France's greatest painters, made before he encountered Impressionism or even the Barbizon school.

The early technique reflects Pissarro's pre-academic formation, with careful tonal description and relatively smooth handling. The tropical light, stronger and more intense than European conditions, appears to have encouraged a brighter approach to color than his later French Barbizon-influenced work. The colonial square is described with observational directness.