Rue De Poulfenc À Riec 1910

Lucien Pissarro made this painting, Rue De Poulfenc À Riec, with oil paint using tiny little dabs of color. For me, painting is all about the process, and you can really see that here in how Pissarro built up the image. He layered the paint so carefully, and you can see that materiality in the final picture. It's not trying to be a window onto the world. It’s paint. I love the way he used greens and browns to create a sense of depth and texture in the landscape, and the brushstrokes are so visible, especially in the foreground where he has described the bushes in thick, clotted strokes of green and yellow. It makes me think about the physicality of painting, the way the artist’s hand moves across the canvas, and the way the paint itself has its own kind of presence. Pissarro was a neo-impressionist and I think this piece would have been informed by the work of Seurat. Like Seurat, Pissarro embraces a kind of ambiguity, inviting us to project our own meanings and associations onto the artwork.