Place du Theatre-Francais in Spring

Spring sun on a Paris square: people climb on and off a horse-drawn tram, carriages roll past, everyone hurrying somewhere. Pissarro, his eyes failing, watched it all from a hotel window.

The story behind the painting

From 1888 Pissarro suffered more and more from eye trouble, and as the wind outdoors bothered him he was increasingly forced to work indoors. He began painting scenes seen through an open window, which let him partly keep his lifelong principle of painting in the open air. From the mid-1890s he turned to city life, painting bridges, squares and boulevards in Rouen, Le Havre and above all Paris. In the winter and spring of 1898 he painted views of the Place du Théâtre-Français, today Place André Malraux, from the Hôtel du Louvre where he stayed. This is the last of that series.

What to look for

A sunny spring scene: people get on and off a horse-drawn tram, others walk or ride in carriages across the square below. The figures are drawn with quick strokes, yet each is shown with energy as an individual living a life of their own. A woman stands at the rail of the tram on the right; further off there are people in carriages. Everyone is busy, everyone is moving, and the square below seems never to stand still.

Meaning and intent

The high viewpoint gives the feeling of watching the city's hectic life from the hotel window. In subject and handling, Pissarro returns here from his Neo-Impressionist period to the original Impressionist manner, with a looser brush that tries to catch changing light, weather and the energy of the modern city. He raises the tension of the scene with a striking use of the complementary colours red, green, yellow and blue.

Legacy

The canvas, about 66 by 82 cm, is the closing picture of a series that followed one square through two seasons. It is kept today in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. It closes the late chapter in which Pissarro, who had once recorded the landscapes of Pontoise and Éragny, turned to the bridges, squares and boulevards of cities, watching them from windows when his eyes kept him indoors. The square he painted still exists, renamed Place André Malraux.