Alfred Sisley

Alfred Sisley (1839-1899), French landscape painter, born in Paris of English parents. As a pupil in the studio of Swiss painter Charles Gabriel Gleyre, Sisley met French artists Claude Monet and Pierre Auguste Renoir, with whom he founded the impressionist school of painting (see Impressionism). Although Sisley's work attracted little attention in his lifetime, its importance has since been recognized. Sisley's gentle, idyllic paintings, mainly of scenes near Paris, reveal the influence of French painter Camille Corot, especially in their soft, harmonious colors. They include La Seine à Bougival (1872?), Yale University Gallery of Art, New Haven, Connecticut), Flood at Port-Marly (1876, Musée d'Orsay, Paris), and Street at Moret (1890?, Art Institute of Chicago).