In 1877, Pissarro lived in the Hermitage region of Pontoise and worked mostly in the adjacent hill country. By that time, he was not interested in depicting diverse sites. He felt content to paint the same place over and over, for it was the seasons and the light that mattered to him. Pissarro attempted to paint the environment, avoiding the picturesque and well-known sites previously depicted by other artists. He felt at home with a well-balanced composition of a rural landscape and dealt with familiar motifs while employing a new approach to color and the technique of its application. Pissarro had a particular gift for rendering simple scenes into pictorially attractive, structurally interesting works. The subject matter of this present work has been popular in Europe since the 17th century; a curved diagonal road that leads into the distance. An autumnal haze envelops the almost diaphanous trees and bushes, and the figure of a woman on horseback is barely recognizable. The various elements in the landscape lose their weight, while the transparent sky sheds a bright, cold, golden light, which penetrates the foliage and reaches the tree trunks. The light unites the foreground and the distance in a dense, richly woven pattern, consisting mostly of tiny, multi-colored dabs of paint and vertical hatchings. The small-scale, individual touches of paint and the wrist-gesture strokes are similar to those of Monet and Sisley, both of whom had been using that technique since the late 1860s.
In some places, the thickness of Pissarro's paint suggests that he painted layer upon layer before finally achieving a remarkable density without recourse to the use of darks and lights. When viewed from a distance, the individual multi-colored brushstrokes disappear, but the mesh of small touches of warm and cool colors and the use of complementary colors afford a certain relief as well as a richness of gradations to the painting. In his search for a more objective, less sentimental approach to rural subjects, Pissarro came closer to Monet's conception of painting. He had seen many of Monet's works at the second exhibition of Impressionist paintings in 1876 and thought them the best works exhibited. Pissarro regarded Monet highly and considered him the best landscape master of the time. That same year, Pissarro executed another canvas, also entitled Le vieux chemin en autumne (Musee d'Orsay [P2V 416]). Both works are similar in composition but they differ in style: the painting in the Orsay collection is concerned with light and dark values; the Hecht painting, with color hues, which lead to a brighter palette. Adjusting his approach to each work of art, Pissarro painted in two different techniques within one year.
Pissarro wrote to his son Lucien in 1877: "When I work, I never, or very rarely, consider the execution, and my best things have always been entirely subconscious. It is the color and tone that especially attract me, and to me an atmospheric effect cannot be truly rendered by a bold sweep of paint, but by touched of subtle difference that suggests the delicate variety of nature."1 In regard to the years 1877-78, Rewald writes that despite Pissarro's financial difficulties, he was "as firm as a rock, not knowing either weariness or a loss of belief, poor as Job and prouder than he."2
Notes:
1. Richard P. Brettell, Pissarro and Pontiose, London, 1990, p. 213.
2. John Rewald, Pissarro, London, 1959, p. 5.