Wooded Landscape at the Hermitage, near Pontoise

Currently not on view

Wooded Landscape at the Hermitage, near Pontoise

1879

Camille Pissarro (French, 1830–1903)

Pissarro’s inventive approach to this woodland scene was inspired by an invitation to contribute to Edgar Degas’s (French, 1834 - 1917) collaborative album of experimental prints “Le Jour et la Nuit,” which was never published. With the same sensitivity to atmosphere and light that he used in his paintings, Pissarro achieved subtle gradations of tone by placing several layers of aquatint over the silhouettes of the houses, which he had previously etched using the soft-ground technique. To create the trees, Pissarro employed two additional methods that allowed him to create select areas of tone using a brush: lift-ground for the textured trunks, and spit-bite for the foliage, resulting in the painterly strokes that appear throughout the composition.

Currently not on view

Object Details

Title:

Wooded Landscape at the Hermitage, near Pontoise
Print created for the album Le Jour et la Nuit (unpublished)

Date:

1879

Artist:

Camille Pissarro (French, 1830–1903)

Medium:

Soft-ground etching, lift-ground and spit-bite aquatint, and drypoint with scraping and burnishing

Dimensions:

Plate: 8 9/16 × 10 1/2 inches (21.7 × 26.6 cm) Sheet: 11 7/8 x 16 15/16 inches (30.2 x 43 cm)

Classification:

Prints

Credit Line:

Purchased with the John D. McIlhenny Fund, 1941

Accession Number:

1941-8-105

Geography:

Made in France, Europe

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Currently not on view