On the Banks of the Oise

Camille Pissarro’s impressionist painting, Banks of the Oise, currently on display at the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, conveys a realistic scene of everyday life along the banks of the River Oise. While browsing the impressive new museum to find a piece of artwork to analyze for my English class at UNC-Chapel Hill, the Banks of the Oise grabbed my attention; the painting appears to be in motion with rushing water and a light breeze.

Pissarro did not sugarcoat any aspect of his work. His sympathy for the poor and his socially-conscious mind yielded paintings that identified with the working class and their everyday, normal lives. I was surprised to find that if I looked up a the painting from the bottom right corner, I honestly felt like I was staring down a river, with choppy water surrounding me, vegetation rushing by, and distant homes fuzzy in the background. The oil painting’s formal qualities, including Pissarro’s use of light, brash brush strokes, bold colors, attention to depth perception, and abstract representation of nature, provide a semblance of what he saw and reflect Pissarro’s appreciation for the realistic world- allowing the viewer to ride the barge down the river and to observe what he wishes along the way.

The sun’s rays glisten on top of the water, culminating on the far end of the river bank. My eye was immediately drawn to this light spot in the middle of the river and from there to the landscape on the far bank. My eye traveled down the river towards the sun’s reflection on the water, just as a barge would have traveled through the narrow pass.
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Pissarro used the impressionist technique, meaning he used bold brushstrokes to create a total affect. The combination of bold colors and brushstrokes gives the painting a natural glow. The blending grass, bushes, waves, etc. do not create a sharp image, but instead leave the perception of the painting somewhat up to the viewer. I imagine that if I was passing by the river banks in a barge like the one pictured, the vegetation would be hazy similar to how it appears in the painting.

The river fades into the distance as do the vegetation and homes on the opposite shoreline. This depth perception adds credibility to the painting and makes it more realistic. When I observed the painting from a few feet back, I felt like I was looking out a window from inside a barge, straining to see the house in the distance and anxiously waiting to see what was around the bend. <>The impressionist technique does not result in a sharp, distinct picture, but instead creates a more abstract representation of reality. Because the image created is not clear-cut and is left open to some interpretation, the viewer is forced to sharpen the image in his/her own mind. This same process, however, is in fact how I perceive nature in reality. I am often rushing by fields or trees in my car, running by them on the streets of Chapel Hill, or simply not “stopping to smell the roses” enough to truly appreciate the outside world. Instead, I see a blurry image and my mind fills in the blanks.

For example, if I saw a rose bush on the side of the road, I would most likely only see a blur of green scattered with pink dots. My brain, however, would create a sharper image of the same bush, complete with individual leaves and rose petals. In a way, this is what our brain does with impressionist paintings, we see a somewhat more blurry or fuzzy version of flowers or trees and use our own minds to fill in the rest. When floating down a river, we also see a blurred version of reality; using the impressionist technique to create abstract representations of naure, Pissarro appropriately conveyed the view of the grass and the trees in the wind from a barge window.

In conclusion, Pissarro conveyed his desire to portray reality by conveying the scene on the Banks of the River Oise as they would have been seen from a barge floating down the river- as not quite in focus. The job is then left to the viewer to step back and survey the painting as a whole, filling in the blurry spots with his/her own ideas of nature.