The Seine at Marly, Camille Pisarro

I love Impressionist paintings. I think it may be that the softness of them, the blurring of the lines, is indicative of something. They come at life sideways, so to speak, obliquely and with a great subtlety. They do not state unequivocally. They hint. I was looking yesterday at a painting by Camille Pisarro, The Seine at Marly. It's a picture of a river curving away to the left; a steamboat, I think, and maybe a sailboat on the water. A man fishing. But what strikes me is the couple walking away from the viewer, down a cobbled walk beside the river. The man is a simple silhouette in a dark suit, just a touch of white where his collar marks the end of his coat and the beginning of his dark hair. The elbow of the left arm pokes out, as though his hand is in his pocket, or perhaps adjusting his coat. His right arm hangs down at his side. She's walking next to him, her silhouette even simpler. Full black skirt, black hair. Her cape is brilliantly red over her rounded shoulders. There's an elegance about her that I can't quite put a finger on. And there's an intimacy about the couple that's equally intangible. They're not even touching. Perhaps it's simply the fact that they're walking along the Seine on a path intersected by bars of golden late-afternoon sun, roofed by a patchwork of green and yellow and a hint of red. I wonder if they're talking about what they see, or if they're discussing the details of his day, the happenings of hers. Just as likely, they're walking along in companionable silence. A painting like that doesn't tell you what to think. It doesn't even tell you how her hair is arranged, or what their faces are like. It just suggests something to you, and then lets you tell the story yourself.