Banks of the Eure, Normandy

Gustave Loiseau painted 'Banks of the Eure, Normandy' in 1901 during his sustained engagement with the rivers of north-western France—a practice that situated him within the Impressionist tradition of river painting while expressing his own individual concern with the specific character of Norman waterways. The Eure, which flows through historic towns including Chartres and Évreux before joining the Seine, offered Loiseau the kind of intimate, tree-lined riverscape he consistently preferred to the grander scale of the Seine itself. The Buffalo AKG Art Museum holds the work in its collection of French Post-Impressionism.

Loiseau applies paint with a broken, mosaic-like brushwork derived from but more fragmented than orthodox Impressionism—small, varied strokes of colour that create a vibrating surface capturing the reflected light on the slow-moving Norman river. The palette is characteristically cool and muted.