Collection highlights tour

Between 1884 and 1888 Pissarro experimented with the pointillist method of the younger Seurat. For an avowed anarchist it was perhaps no great step, but in art-historical terms Pissarro's stylistic shift, however momentary, coincided with the end of impressionism's avant-garde ascendancy. 'Peasants' houses, Eragny' was painted during this fascinating interlude. Pissarro has fully absorbed the tenets and techniques of the distinctive style. Form is constructed by discrete juxtaposition of individual strokes, or 'dots', of pigment. Atmosphere is suggested by chromatic scintillation. Surface is treated as a single unity. The mechanical effect which can deaden pointillist painting is obviated by Pissarro's acute sense of the internal dynamics of design. The cast shadows intruding from the right are deliberately naive; this was to be an important innovation for the younger generation of post-impressionists such as Gauguin and Cezanne. AGNSW Handbook, 1999.