The Church at Moret, Evening
Alfred Sisley (1839 to 1899) · 1894
The flamboyant Gothic church of Moret-sur-Loing fills the canvas, seen from slightly above and at an angle, so that the porch, the buttresses and the rose window catch the last warm light of the day. Small figures pass along the street at the bottom, and the sky above the tower has begun to turn violet. Sisley had settled in Moret, a small town south of Fontainebleau, in the late 1880s, and between 1893 and 1894 he painted the church about fourteen times, in sun and rain, morning and evening, frost and summer heat.
The obvious comparison is Monet's series of Rouen Cathedral, painted in the same years, but Sisley's approach is different. He keeps the building solid and legible, with a draughtsman's respect for its architecture, and lets the light do the changing. Look at the small separate touches of pink, orange and blue on the stone, and at the way the shadow side of the porch is painted in cool greens rather than grey. The paint is thin in the sky and thicker on the masonry, which gives the church a physical weight that the atmosphere around it lacks. Sisley worked from an upstairs window across the square, which explains the raised viewpoint.
The City of Paris bought the painting directly from the artist when it was exhibited at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1896, three years before Sisley died in poverty, so this was one of the rare official recognitions he received in his lifetime. It came into the Petit Palais when the museum opened in 1902. Sisley is buried in the cemetery at Moret, within sight of the church he painted so often.
Did You Know? The City of Paris bought this canvas from Sisley himself in 1896, one of very few purchases by a public institution during the painter's lifetime.
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