Pissarro, Camille (1830-1903)
L’avant-port du Havre, matin, soleil, marée montante (The Outer Harbour of Le Havre, Morning, Sun, Rising Tide)
1903
Oil on canvas, 54.5 x 65 cm
Musée d’art moderne André Malraux, Le Havre
On arriving in Le Havre, Pissarro wrote to his son: “You know that for me, subjects are entirely secondary: atmosphere and effects are what count.” With a port that is so wide open to the sea, he must surely have found effects aplenty. Even so, subjects are never insignificant, and in Le Havre, as in Dieppe and Rouen, the teeming activity of the harbour, with its moving individual figures and groups, continued to be of great interest to Pissarro. (MuMa)