Abstract impressionism???

I love the work of Pissaro:

The Red Roofs

This reminds me of Cezanne… the blockiness and earthy colours… and in a strange way Whistler’s Mother, which though ostensibly a painting of his mother is almost a geometric abstraction.

However, here, I think the compositional elements blend with the colouration to produce both a studied and immediate painting, which you can stand before as if you are on the scene. And yet, there is a nagging voice (maybe about the perfection of design or carefully built up stubby brushstrokes) – or maybe just the knowledge it was studio painted – that this is in some way a study.

Although on the surface it is bathed in immediacy it lacks the freshness, looseness and vital spark of Summer air that  would take me to the spot and carries with it a whiff of intellectualism.