"Vegetable Garden and Trees in Blossom, Spring, Pontoise"
Camille Pissarro - Oil - 81 x 66 cm
The colour from the sky plays not only on therooftops, but into the plum blossoms as well. Pissarros’s delicate brushwork is evident in all aspects of the piece,with short strokes on the greenery of the vegetables and the tree blossoms, aswell as the mix of clouds and clear sky above the hilltop.
The impression of the painting, with the gnarled,aging trees that do not have the profuse blooms of youth, has a hint of bleakness among the airy brushwork mimicking the fluffy plum blossoms. “The Vegetable Garden with Trees in Blossom,Spring, Pontoise” was painted as Pissarro entered a period of emotional strainand financial difficulty that required him to sell his paintings and properties at low prices.
While the painting was finished in 1877, Pissarrowaited two years to exhibit it at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in 1879.Gustave Caillebotte was the first recorded owner of “Vegetable Garden and Treesin Blossom, Spring, Pointoise,” purchasing it in 1879 from the Exhibition. Caillebotte willed the painting to the Stateof France upon his death in 1894. Until1929, it was displayed in the Museum of the Luxembourg in Paris. In 1929 itmoved to the collection of the Louvre, although it was not put on display until1947. In 1986 it was transferred to the Musée d’Orsay. It has been part of 19 exhibitions inFrance, Spain, Germany, the United States, Sweden, Australia, South Korea andDenmark.