Alfred Sisley
The quiet Impressionist.
Alfred Sisley painted almost nothing but landscapes around Paris: rivers, floods and skies. He lived in poverty and won recognition only after his death.
Alfred Sisley was born in 1839 in Paris. His parents were British, and his father ran a successful silk business. Alfred was sent to London to learn business, but he spent more time in the museums, where he saw Turner and Constable. In 1862 he entered Charles Gleyre’s studio in Paris and became friends with Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Frédéric Bazille.
In his early years Sisley lived comfortably on family money. But the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 ruined his father’s business, and for the rest of his life Sisley struggled with poverty. He lived with Marie Lescouezec and had two children with her. They did not marry until 1897. The family often moved to cheaper lodgings in villages around Paris, such as Louveciennes and Marly-le-Roi.
Sisley took part in several of the Impressionist exhibitions. He was the purest landscape painter in the group and painted almost nothing but nature: rivers, bridges, roads, snow and above all skies. A famous series shows the flood at Port-Marly in 1876, with the water rising around an inn. One version is in the Musée d'Orsay. His colours are light and airy, and the sky often takes up more than half the picture.
From 1880 he lived near Moret-sur-Loing, where he painted the river, the bridge and the old church in different lights. He was a British citizen and applied for French citizenship but never obtained it. He died of cancer in 1899, a few months after his wife.
Sisley never achieved any great success in his lifetime. Only a year or so after his death the prices of his paintings rose sharply. Today he is seen as one of the most consistent and quietly assured masters of Impressionism.