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The Lock at Pontoise
Camille Pissarro (French, 1830–1903)
1872
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 76.8 x 105.7 x 11.4 cm (30 1/4 x 41 5/8 x 4 1/2 in.); Unframed: 53 x 83 cm (20 7/8 x 32 11/16 in.)
- Culture
- France, 19th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Pissarro was instrumental in developing the radically new Impressionist technique of painting quickly outdoors to capture fleeting effects of light and atmosphere. The rushing water and overcast sky in this view of a river lock near the artist’s home at Pontoise, a rural commune about 17 miles northwest of Paris, are rendered with rapid, broken brushstrokes of pure color. Painting directly on canvas without preliminary drawing, Pissarro may have executed this work in a single session. The shimmering surface of broken color conveys the sensation of natural, outdoor light.
