The village path - thatched cottages in Valhermeil 1880

Camille Pissarro, a committed socialist, painted this landscape of thatched cottages in Valhermeil, France, sometime before his death in 1903. It's a work that appears at first glance to be classically impressionistic. But consider the politics of representing rural life at this time. The end of the 19th century in France saw rapid industrialization, rural exodus, and the rise of socialist movements. Pissarro, who had been involved in radical politics since the 1848 revolution, here seems to represent peasant life as harmonious. His decision to paint rural scenes rather than urban landscapes was a conscious choice to focus on the lives of ordinary people. To understand the historical context, we might look at sources that document the changing rural economy in France at the time, or records of socialist debates about the role of the peasantry. Pissarro’s art is deeply embedded in the social and political struggles of his era.