The consummate landscape painter, Alfred Sisley was born to English parents and made his first trip to London in 1857. It was there that he was inspired by the work of such English landscape painters as Turner, Constable, and Bonnington. He joined other Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir in flouting the strict methods of the École des Beaux-Arts in favor of a more naturalistic and realistic portrayal of his subjects. In 1868, Alfred Sisley's landscape, Avenue of Chestnut Trees near La Celle Saint-Cloud (Southampton), was shown at the prestigious Salon art exhibition. The painting drew upon the soft tonality of Camille Corot and the dramatic massing of Courbet, both of whom were a strong influence on the artist.This painting, one of Sisley’s first, reflects the characteristic color, the immobile and heavy clumps of foliage, of Courbet and the Barbizon painters. Like many other canvases of the Impressionists painted in that period the harsh transitions of tone, the lack of articulation in shadows, combined with myriad touches of pigment in the lightest areas, produce a peculiar stereoscopic effect.
