Hoarfrost 1890

Camille Pissarro made this watercolor, “Hoarfrost,” in 1890. The artist has thinned the watercolor, allowing him to capture the delicate and ephemeral quality of a winter landscape. Rather than creating a seamless wash of color, he seems to have applied the pigment in short brushstrokes, creating a grainy texture. This technique emphasizes the way that the light plays over the snow-covered ground. See how Pissarro has used the transparent quality of the paint to allow the white of the paper to show through, creating a sense of luminosity. The hoarfrost is evoked through the application of color over the material ground of the paper, giving it depth. While Pissarro is often thought of as an Impressionist painter, in this work, he seems to be interested in the materiality of the watercolor medium itself, and how the process of painting can be used to capture a fleeting moment in time. The way the artist worked with the inherent qualities of the watercolor allowed him to create a sense of atmospheric perspective and distance, making you feel as though you are standing in the cold, crisp air of a winter day.