[Illustration:  PISSARRO

RUE DE L’EPICERIE, ROUEN]

[Illustration:  PISSARRO

BOULEVARDE MONTMARTRE]

[Illustration:  PISSARRO

THE BOILDIEAUX BRIDGE AT ROUEN]

[Illustration:  PISSARO

THE AVENUE DE L’OPERA]

There has, perhaps, been more original individuality in the landscape painter Alfred Sisley.  He possessed in the highest degree the feeling for light, and if he did not have the power, the masterly passion of Claude Monet, he will at least deserve to be frequently placed by his side as regards the expression of certain combinations of light.  He did not have the decorative feeling which makes Monet’s landscapes so imposing; one does not see in his work that surprising lyrical interpretation which knows how to express the drama of the raging waves, the heavy slumber of enormous masses of rock, the intense torpor of the sun on the sea.  But in all that concerns the mild aspects of the Ile de France, the sweet and fresh landscapes, Sisley is not unworthy of being compared with Monet.  He equals him in numerous pictures; he has a similar delicacy of perception, a similar fervour of execution.  He is the painter of great, blue rivers curving towards the horizon; of blossoming orchards; of bright hills with red-roofed hamlets scattered about; he is, beyond all, the painter of French skies which he presents with admirable vivacity and facility.  He has the feeling for the transparency of atmosphere, and if his technique allies him directly with Impressionism, one can well feel, that he painted spontaneously and that this technique happened to be adapted to his nature, without his having attempted to appropriate it for the sake of novelty.  Sisley has painted a notable series of pictures in the quaint village of Moret on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where he died at a ripe age, and these canvases will figure among the most charming landscapes of our epoch.  Sisley was a veteran of Impressionism.  At the Exhibition of 1900, in the two rooms reserved for the works of this school, there were to be seen a dozen of Sisley’s canvases.  By the side of the finest Renoirs, Monets and Manets they kept their charm and their brilliancy with a singular flavour, and this was for many critics a revelation as to the real place of this artist, whom they had hitherto considered as a pretty colourist of only relative importance.

[Illustration:  SISLEY

SNOW EFFECT]

[Illustration:  SISLEY

BOUGIVAL, AT THE WATER’S EDGE]

[Illustration:  SISLEY

BRIDGE AT MORET]