Snow on the pier (Paris)

This pochade, done with great spontaneity, allows to understand the taste and the first references of the first modernist generation arriving in Paris on this date. The concerns presented here are characteristic of late-Impressionist painting that was then completely outdated as a modern avant-garde. It is mainly the memory of Monet of the London phase that this painting invokes. A subtlety of color developed on large surfaces creates a wrapping of gray and silver tones. The organization of space on proto-abstract horizontal surfaces is cadenced by the archway of the bridge, which overlaps with the city glimpsed and guessed in the thick atmosphere. The identification of the city is only possible by the idiosyncratic mark of the bridge.