Red Roofs, Corner of a Village, Winter – (Camille Pissarro) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Camille Pissarro

Style: Impressionism

Topic: Colour Village Winter

Date: 1877

Size: 26 x 21 cm

Museum: Musée d'Orsay (Paris, France)

Technique: Oil On Canvas

Pissarro's painting entitled Red Roofs, Corner of a Village, Winter is a relatively small canvas measuring only about 55 by 88 cm. It is oil on canvas and is on display at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Most Impressionist artists painted in the open air. They would take their easels and canvases out into the country and create their paintings on the spot. Pissarro was a great supporter of this method and encouraged the younger artists to do the same. However, in 1877, he appears to have developed a technique of painting small oil sketches en plein air which he used as a basis for larger paintings. He considered the smaller compositions to be finished works of art, but they nevertheless served as a catalyst to create a later painting on a much larger scale. His Red Roofs painting may have been one of those smaller oil sketches. Some art historians have claimed that Red Roofs was created in support of a much larger painting he made that same year, Côte des Boeufs at l’Hermitage near Pontoise, which measures about 115 by 88 cm (see photo at the right). That may be true but, in my opinion, Red Roofs is the greater work and demonstrates a superior use of color and pattern. In Red Roofs we see a small cluster of houses through the leafless trees of an orchard. The buildings and their colored roofs appear to be the subject of the painting, but the pattern of the trees and branches distract the observer. Pissarro has created this myriad pattern of trees on the surface of the picture. The twisting branches in the foreground, and the vertical trunks in the middle distance, distract our eyes from the houses. They also physically block the view. Rather than being able clearly to look through and see the houses, our eyes tend to skid across the surface of the composition. Only the bright red roofs of two of the smaller houses are able to retain the interest of the observer - hence the title!