The Pont-Neuf

After a short excursion into divisionism, in the last years of his life Pissarro returned to the looser painting technique of his earlier period. From the 1890s onwards a series of townscapes appears as a new motif in his painting. From the window of his hotel room he repeatedly painted the crowd flowing across the broad span of the Pont-Neuf. The massive block of the bridge and the houses on the embankment, which he breaks up with the patches of small brushstrokes, enlivens in the fleeting vibration of the light effects. The picture's solid structure is the result of his combination of Impressionist techniques with the lessons of divisionism.