Landscape at Les Pâtis, Pontoise

Camille Pissarro, 1868

A small complex of white buildings with red-tile roofs are engulfed in a patchwork of lush, green farm fields over rolling hills in this nearly square painting. The sun-drenched scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes in shades of spring, clover, and pine green, with touches of caramel and sand brown. The horizon comes about three-quarters of the way up the composition, and white clouds float against the pale blue sky above. Small in scale, a few people walk along pathways between fields and a few work among the crops. The cluster of buildings is situated along the base of a hill that rises in the distance, about halfway up the painting. A man wearing a straw hat, a white shirt, and denim-blue overalls walks away from us, perhaps carrying a long-handled tool in the lower left corner of the painting. Another person, perhaps a woman wearing a dress and white cap, stands at a fence along the path, near the man. The artist signed and dated the work with dark paint in the lower right corner: “C.Pissarro.68.”
Artist
Camille Pissarro
Date
1868
Type
Painting
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
81 × 100 cm
Collection
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Licence
Public domain, CC0

Image description

A small complex of white buildings with red-tile roofs are engulfed in a patchwork of lush, green farm fields over rolling hills in this nearly square painting. The sun-drenched scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes in shades of spring, clover, and pine green, with touches of caramel and sand brown. The horizon comes about three-quarters of the way up the composition, and white clouds float against the pale blue sky above. Small in scale, a few people walk along pathways between fields and a few work among the crops. The cluster of buildings is situated along the base of a hill that rises in the distance, about halfway up the painting. A man wearing a straw hat, a white shirt, and denim-blue overalls walks away from us, perhaps carrying a long-handled tool in the lower left corner of the painting. Another person, perhaps a woman wearing a dress and white cap, stands at a fence along the path, near the man. The artist signed and dated the work with dark paint in the lower right corner: “C.Pissarro.68.”

Camille Pissarro