The Road in Sunlight

Henri Delavallée (French, 1862-1943)

about 1887. холст, масло. 18.0 x 21.75 cm см. Indianapolis Museum of Art.

In this view of a narrow road in a coastal town in Brittany, Delavallée uses dots in various shades of green to capture lush bushes and trees while employing cooler shades of violet to render shadows on a sunny day. Upon meeting Camille Pissarro in the late 1880s, Delavallée was encouraged by him to experiment with pointillist, or dotted, brushwork according to the theories of color division embraced by Georges Seurat. Like Gauguin and other artists associated with Pont-Aven, Delavallée was attracted to the simple stone architecture of the rustic Breton countryside, deciding eventually to settle down there.