1869 -1872 · roads, chestnut trees and suburban winters

In Louveciennes, Pissarro paints less of a picturesque village than a network of roads connecting houses, travelers, woods and aqueduct under frost, snow or spring.

Pissarro moved to Louveciennes in 1869, when his gaze gradually detached itself from the conventions of the Salon. The road to Versailles, the Chemin des Creux and the Route de Marly offer him simple axes where stagecoach, peasant or walker measure the depth. The houses, including that of Monsieur Musy, are not isolated architectural portraits: they are inserted between embankments, fences and trees. The chestnut woods allow us to observe the screen of the trunks in winter then the return of the foliage. After London's exile caused by the Franco-Prussian War, Pissarro finds an occupied house and part of his works destroyed, but takes up these motifs. The effects of snow and frost color the white with blues, ochres and grays. Louveciennes thus becomes a transitional ground between tone inherited from Corot and a more open impressionist touch. The "Louveciennes by Camille Pissarro" selection notably compares Maison de Monsieur Musy, Louveciennes and Diligence à Louveciennes. His reading favors color.

The roads of Louveciennes give the landscape a lived direction: they are traveled before being contemplated.