Landscape through Trees at the Hermitage, Pontoise (Translation)
Paysage sous bois, à l’Hermitage (Pontoise) (Primary Title)
Wooded Landscape at l’Hermitage (Pontoise) (Former Title)
Camille Pissarro, French, 1830 - 1903 (Artist)
Though widely recognized today for his luminous paintings, Pissarro was among the most devoted and prolific peintre-graveurs (painter-etchers) of the Impressionists. In the 1870s he shared a print studio with Degas, where the two used both conventional and unorthodox etching techniques. Pissarro included etchings in the 1880 and 1886 Impressionist exhibitions and later experimented with monotypes and lithography using his own press.
This view of a forest glade demonstrates the complexity of Pissarro’s printmaking process. Soft-ground lines, rather than distinct etched lines, comprise outlines, while fine layers of aquatint produce the scattered gray or tonal areas. Pissarro brushed on a lift ground to form the tree trunks, applying small strokes of acid to indicate foliage. Selective scraping and polishing of the plate heighten the patterns of light shining through the trees. He modeled the forest floor with a light layer of aquatint. This impression—the sixth and final state—is from the edition of fifty produced for the unrealized issue of Le Jour et la Nuit, an avant-garde print journal organized by Degas.
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