Alfred Sisley (October 30, 1839 – January 29, 1899) was an English Impressionist landscape painter who lived and worked in France. Sisley was born in Paris to affluent English parents, William Sisley and Felicia Sell. In the early 1860s he studied in the atelier of Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre, where he became acquainted with Frédéric Bazille, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Together they would paint landscapes en plein air (in the open air) in order to realistically capture transient effects of sunlight. This approach, innovative at the time, resulted in paintings more colorful and more broadly painted than the public was accustomed to seeing. Consequently, Sisley and his friends initially had few opportunities to exhibit or sell their work, although unlike some of his fellow students who suffered financial hardships, Sisley received an allowance from his father. Sisley's student works are lost. His earliest known work, Lane near a Small Town is believed to have been painted around 1864.
In 1866, he married Eugénie Lesouezec, a Breton, with whom he had two children. His financial security vanished in 1870 when his father's business failed, and Sisley's sole means of support became the sale of his works. For the remainder of his life he would live in poverty; his paintings rose significantly in monetary value only after his death. In 1880 Sisley and his family moved to a small village near Moret-sur-Loing, close to the forest of Fontainebleau where the painters of the Barbizon school had worked earlier in the century. Here, as art historian Anne Poulet has said, the gentle landscapes with their constantly changing atmosphere were perfectly attuned to his talents. Unlike Monet, he never sought the drama of the rampaging ocean or the brilliantly coloured scenery of the Côte d'Azur. Apart from a period spent in London in 1857-61—and brief trips to England in 1874, 1881, and 1897—Sisley lived his entire life in France. Little is known about his relationship with the paintings of J. M. W. Turner and John Constable, which he may well have seen in London, although these artists have been suggested as an influence on his development as an Impressionist painter. Among the Impressionists Sisley has been overshadowed by Monet, whose work his most resembles, although Sisley was less experimental, and tended to work on a smaller scale.
Described by art historian Robert Rosenblum as having almost a generic character, an impersonal textbook idea of a perfect Impressionist painting, his work strongly invokes atmosphere and his skies are always very impressive. His concentration on landscape subjects was the most consistent of any of the Impressionists. Sisley died in Moret-sur-Loing at the age of 59, just a few months after the death of his wife.
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