Moret sur Loing the Porte de Bourgogne 1891

Alfred Sisley’s canvas of Moret sur Loing, with its Porte de Bourgogne, is rendered in oil paint, the favored medium of its time. Think of oil paint not just as color, but as a recipe. Pigment is ground and mixed with linseed or walnut oil, resulting in a paste that can be applied with a brush. The consistency allows for the creation of the textures you can see here – the sky in particular, with its cumulus clouds built up from repeated strokes. Sisley’s technique, typical of the Impressionists, was to apply paint ‘alla prima’ – wet on wet – and to work outdoors, ‘en plein air.’ This was made possible by advances in industrial chemistry, which allowed pigments to be pre-mixed and sold in portable tubes. Sisley and his colleagues were thus able to capture fleeting atmospheric effects, transforming the very labor of painting into a kind of performance. Considering these material and technical factors helps us understand the work not just as a beautiful image, but as a product of its time, shaped by industry and a changing relationship to labor.