As Sterling and Salinger observe, Jallais Hill, Pontoise "is the chief work of Pissarro?s earliest, pre-Impressionist style and shows traces of Corot and also of Courbet, whose influence is especially evident in the use of deep greens against the vivid blue of the sky” (Charles Sterling and Margaretta Salinger, French Paintings, a Cata logue of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Volume Il [New York], 1967, p. 5). Although it is a pre-Impressionist work, it has many Impressionist characteristics. For example, the clear light does not reveal much precise detail; the figures on the road are faceless, their treatment typifying the simplifications throughout; the broad treatment of the grasses, the road, and the foliage in the foreground foreshadows the interest in the generalized appearance of things that Louis Leroy derisively labeled –impression” in his review of the first Impressionist exhibition (cf. Monet, Impression, no. 28, and Boulevard des Capucines, Paris, no. 30). Moreover, the outside leaves of the shrubbery at the right that seem to be unattached, and the white walls of the houses in the valley that tend to bleach out details such as windows, indicate an interest in optical and chromatic effects that anticipate Impressionism in its fully devel oped form in the seventies.

Simplifications and modifications of the scene are found throughout the picture; although in 1867 Pissarro was beyond the schematizations of Corot, who allowed Pissarro to name him as one of his teachers (cf. John Rewald, The History of Impressionism, New York, 1973, p. 101), he was not as adventurous as Monet. Indeed, Pissarro did not entirely capitalize on the possibilities offered in Jallais Hill, Pontoise even though he was working with an ideal early Impressionist composition 3ƒ4 a view from above looking down into and across an expanse blocked at the back.

He chose, instead, a style more realist, more Courbet-like, than Impressionist. The emphasis on broad, flat areas of color, as in the pattern of fields on the hillside, is typical of advanced painting in the sixties (e.g. Monet, Terrace at Sainte-Adresse, no. 26; Monet, La Grenouillére, no. 27; and Manet, The Fifer, 1866, Musée du Louvre, R.F. 1992). Kermit Champa notes that Pissarro and Monet, in 1866-1867, had attained a similar level of formal achievement : "Pissarro moved in... two palette-knife pictures to a point of coincidence with the contemporary art of Monet 3ƒ4 a point of coincidence which he may or may not have recognized. Both painters discovered almost simultaneously that a uniform field of brushstrokes (or palette-knife strokes) possessed everything neces sary for the development of successful realist paintings. While the field emphasized the flatness of the picture plane to a considerable degree, it offered a sure means of pictorial organization. The kind of organization implied by this field stressed continuity. It did not provide hierarchical arrangment and emphasis in the same way as traditional composition, but it permitted, because of the regu larity of intervals between its internal parts, an unprecedented development of color and color value. Through this development, relative accents of volume and space could be achieved optically rather than by measurement or position” (Kermit Champa, Studies in Early Impressionism, New Haven and London, 1973, p. 75). Furthermore, Champa suggests that Pissarro incorporated the advanced effects of his palette-knife paintings –into large paintings that would be acceptable to the tastes of the Salon jury” (Champa, p. 75).

Pissarro seems to have succeeded in blending traditional ideas with those of the avant-garde: Jallais Hill, Pontoise was accepted and exhibited in the Salon of 1868; it seems also to have been included in the sixth Impressionist exhibition.

Inscription:Signed and dated (lower right): C. Pissarro / 1867

Accession Number:51.30.2

Credit Line:Bequest of William Church Osborn, 1951

Provenance:

the artist, Paris (1867–d. 1903);

his widow, Mme Camille (Julie Vellay) Pissarro, Paris (from 1904); their son, Paul-3ò4mile Pissarro, Lyons-la-For?t, France (sold for Fr 100,000 to Heinemann);

[Heinemann Gallery, New York, by 1927–29; stock no. 18381, sold on January 15, 1929, for $7,500, to Holston];

[William H. Holston Gallery, New York, 1929; sold to Osborn]; William Church Osborn, New York (1929–51)