Along the woods in spring

Spring was the season Sisley captured with particular delicacy, and his forest-edge and woodland-path subjects from spring months in the Fontainebleau region or the Loing valley show him responding to that brief moment when foliage is still thin enough to allow sunlight deep penetration. The woods in spring motif connects directly to Corot's celebrated spring forest subjects, which were among the Barbizon paintings Sisley studied closely in the late 1860s. But where Corot used feathery tonal transitions, Sisley employs color: the yellow-green of fresh leaves against the grey-brown of still-bare branches, with warm light filtering through the canopy onto the path below.

Spring foliage is treated with light, feathery strokes in fresh greens and yellow-greens, while the tree trunks below are more firmly rendered in warm browns and grey-ochres. The path through the woods picks up dappled light in pale warm tones, with shadows cooling to blue-grey where the canopy closes above.