Louveciennes, Route de Saint-Germain

Camille Pissarro

1871

Watercolor over black chalk, Watercolor, Chalk

J. Paul Getty Museum

A watercolor painting depicts a rural road curving through trees and fields, with a lone figure walking and a horse-drawn carriage in the distance. A building with a tower is visible on the right. As much as a specific location, this large watercolor represents a particular season. The palette of muted browns, blacks, greens, and blues create an autumnal landscape. The pale blue-gray sky, streaked with clouds, and the sparse foliage, both on and fallen from the almost bare trees, also convey winter's approach. A single figure and, in the distance, a figure and carriage, move along the desolate road curving through the scene. Camille Pissarro's landscape shows the road to the town of Saint-Germain-en-Laye from Louveciennes, a village west of Paris. Many of Pissarro's landscapes of the early 1870s show the roads into and out of