The artwork titled “Sunset, Rouen” was created by the renowned artist Camille Pissarro in the year 1898. This original piece, an exemplar of the Impressionist movement, is crafted using oil on canvas and spans dimensions of 54 x 65 cm. As a cityscape, it depicts an urban scene at dusk, capturing a moment of daily life in an impressionistic style that emphasizes the transient effects of light and color. The artwork finds its residence within a Private Collection.
In the artwork, the viewer is presented with the vibrant hues of a setting sun over the city of Rouen. The sky, awash with warm oranges, yellows, and soft purples, contrasts with the cooler tones of the buildings and the water below. Dominating the center of the composition is the sun, whose brilliant light scatters across the clouds and reflects on the surface of the river, imbuing the scene with a luminous quality characteristic of Impressionism.
Pissarro skillfully renders the activity along the quayside, where figures and horses can be seen in silhouette against the illuminated ground. Smoke rises from industrial stacks, contributing to the atmosphere and evoking the changing nature of urban environments during the artist’s time. The brushwork is loose and expressive, allowing the colors to play off one another, creating an image that is as much about the sensation of the moment as it is about the physical location. Through this approach, Pissarro captures not just the visual splendor of the sunset but also the fleeting atmospheric mood of the scene.
