View of the Oissel Cotton Mill, near Rouen

In 1898, Camille Pissarro turned sixty-eight. The Impressionist revolution was over. Comfortably settled in the country, he watched the prices of their canvases skyrocket. And yet, he renewed himself. The painter of meadows became the master of bustling cityscapes and the industrial port towns of Normandy, including Rouen, Dieppe and Le Havre. Although as an Impressionist he was interested in modern life and as an anarchist he felt close to the working class, it was neither poverty nor bohemian nightlife that he depicted: what he wanted was to capture atmosphere.