The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning

Pissarro painted The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning in 1897, from a window of the Grand Hotel de Russie on the Boulevard des Italiens in Paris. He was 67 years old and had been an Impressionist for 25 years, since the first group exhibition in 1874. He was the only painter who exhibited in all eight Impressionist exhibitions, and by the late 1890s he was the elder statesman of the movement. The painting shows the Boulevard Montmartre from above, looking down a wide avenue lined with bare trees. The street is full of traffic: horse-drawn carriages, omnibuses, and pedestrians moving in both directions. The trees are leafless, their branches painted in thin, dark strokes against a gray-white sky. The buildings on either side of the boulevard are painted in pale yellows and grays, their facades dissolving into the morning haze. The light is cold and flat, the light of a Paris winter. Pissarro rented a room at the Grand Hotel de Russie in February 1897, specifically to paint this view. He had been unable to paint outdoors since an eye infection in 1894 had forced him to give up plein air work. Instead, he turned to urban views painted from hotel windows, a practice that produced some of his finest late work. During his stay at the Grand Hotel, he painted 14 views of the Boulevard Montmartre in different weather and light conditions: morning, afternoon, evening, in sun, rain, fog, and snow. The Met's painting is the winter morning version. Pissarro had experimented with Neo-Impressionism in the late 1880s, painting in the pointillist style of Seurat and Signac. By 1897, he had returned to a looser Impressionist touch, but his late cityscapes retain the systematic approach of his Neo-Impressionist years. The 14 Boulevard Montmartre paintings are a series in the sense that Monet's haystacks and Rouen Cathedral are a series: the same subject observed under different conditions, each painting recording a specific moment of light and weather. Oil on canvas, 65 by 81 centimeters. Pissarro painted with short, rapid strokes, building the street and buildings in patches of color that suggest forms rather than describing them. The carriages are painted in a few strokes of dark brown and black, their wheels barely indicated. The trees are painted in thin, calligraphic strokes of dark brown and gray. The sky is built in broad, horizontal strokes of white and pale gray, with the morning light diffused across the entire surface. The horizontal format and cool palette make this print work well in a living room, dining room, or office. The grays, pale yellows, and soft blues pair with white walls, natural wood, and modern furniture. The 18x24 size is the best choice, as the composition needs width to read. The painting has a fresh, observational quality that suits rooms with a clean, modern mood. The painting is part of the Havemeyer Collection, bequeathed to the Met in 1929. Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer was a friend and patron of Pissarro, and her collection includes some of his finest late work. This is a public domain artwork (CC0), scanned from the original at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 18x24 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.