Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge

Painted in 1870-1871 and now at the National Museum Cardiff, Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge belongs to the small group of landscape paintings Manet produced during the Franco-Prussian War siege of Paris, when he was serving with the National Guard. The banlieue of Petit-Montrouge, near the city's southern defences, provided an improvised subject — the snow-covered streets and buildings of a working-class suburb under wartime conditions. The painting is unusual in Manet's oeuvre for its landscape subject and for the documentary quality of its wartime context.

The snow-covered cityscape is built with a restrained palette of grey, white, and pale ochre — the buildings reduced to simple geometric volumes under their white covering. Manet's handling of snow, like his handling of other white subjects, relies on subtle tonal variation rather than pure white impasto. The muted, overcast light of a winter siege gives the canvas an appropriately subdued quality.