Familiar Places

Rather than choosing a famous city or vista, the artists in this section represented the places they experienced every day. They had time to frame and reframe views of the land and waterways under different weather conditions throughout the year. In France, Alfred Sisley captured fleeting light on the surface of the Loing River near Saint-Mammès at dusk, and Louis Neillot chose midday to suggest the heat of summer in the countryside in the commune of Meillard. Time as an essential variable in the experience of place was thus captured in paintings in this group.