Alfred Sisley style, technique, artwork

Alfred Sisley's style and technique has greatly influenced of the work of Constable and Turner. Sisley was sent in London from his parents preparing his business career, where he spend time in museums and art galleries dreaming of being an artist. The work of Constable and Turner attracted him especially, and it was in landscape that he was to make his name.

After returning to Paris 1862 he joined Gleyre's atelier and by the next Easter Alfred Sisley and his friend Monet and Renoir were to be found on the edge of the Fontainebleau Forest painting landscapes. And this is what Sisley was to concentrate on for the rest of his life., combining the English tradition of landscape painting with the new techniques evolving amongst the young Impressionists.

In the late 1860 Sisley was increasingly part of the Batignolles Group meeting in the Cafe Guerbois, and like Bazille he was essentially a man of leisure, painting when and as he liked and under no pressure to achieve financial success with his work.

When the first Impressionist exhibition opened in 1874 Sisley was represented by five paintings. Monet's influence was in fact discernible in Sisley work; he was beginning to use brighter pigment in the broken patches which characterized the work of Monet, Pissarro and Renoir during the 1870s and early1880s. A trip to England in July 1874 produced some of his most colorful views of the Thames and the regattas Hampton Court.

Sisley continued to exhibit with the Impressionists in 1876, 1877 and 1882. Between 1874 and 1877 he lived with his family at Mary-le-Roi, and it was here that he produced a series of his painting of the flood which periodically inundated the area.

After renouncing the Impressionist exhibitions Sisley had worked quietly in the country. His landscapes were admired from his friends and critics, as well as several dealers and by early 1890s he was able to find a growing, modest market for his work. This now featured series of paintings of the same subject, particularly the church at Moret where the family finally settled.

In 1897, despite severe rheumatism brought on by long hours painting snowscapes Alfred Sisley set out on a tour of southern England and Wales, producing several landscapes.