The Row of Poplar Trees in Moret

The row of poplar trees along the road into Moret was one of the motifs Sisley returned to most consistently in his final years, and the subject connected him to a broader Impressionist fascination with these tall, narrow trees that punctuate the flat river valleys of northern France. Monet had painted poplars on the Epte in a famous series of 1891, and Sisley's Moret poplars, while not framed as a deliberate series, served a similar function: vertical accents in a horizontal landscape, their movement recording wind speed and direction in a way that pure sky painting could not. Planted in double rows along French roads by Napoleonic-era decree, the poplars carried resonances of rational order in an otherwise irregular natural world.

The tall poplar trunks are painted with firm vertical strokes in warm grey-browns, while the canopy foliage breaks into irregular dabs and patches of green, yellow-green, and blue-green. The road surface beneath employs warm buff and dusty ochre tones laid in with a loaded brush.