Pissarro painted this work during the few years he experimented with Pointillism - a rather scientific method of placing spots of pure color next to each other side by side to create light or shadow. Our eyes mix the color dots instead of the artist mixing colors on a palette. If we were to look closely we'd see what looks like a digital photograph. Talk about being ahead of your time!
This is a Springtime scene in which women are pushing wooden poles into the ground to support peas. Completed rows of poles can be seen between and behind the workers. We can feel the movement of their work - even the dresses, the air, the ground and the leaves of the tree seem charged. Look closely and we can see the orange skirt is made of orange, dark blue, yellow and white dots. The blue skirt is purple and white dots. The red dress is made of deep blue, purple, red and yellow dots. This side-by-side placement of paint dots gives the painting an intensity and brightness that isn't possible with mixed colors.
But Pissarro grew tired of this labor intensive technique and soon abandoned it, returning to his quicker (in one sitting) outdoor method - though for the rest of his life, he did retain some pointillism elements.
While these women are workers, they also seem to be dancers. We don't see it much today, except perhaps in country dancing, but circles form the basis of traditional dances. A priest moving around a free standing altar with a thurible - that's a kind of dance. I lived in a mountain monastery for two weeks some years ago, and on Sundays, there was an offertory procession with the bread and wine carried around the chapel. The monks stood in a circle around the outside of the space, and as the procession progressed, with candles and incense, each monk took a step forward, reaching out to touch the covered bread and wine, then stepping backward to his place. All of this while a memorized litany or psalm was chanted in Aramaic (the language of Jesus). A wonderful liturgical dance.
Pissarro has done a remarkable thing here. He seems to have borrowed the idea of silk-gowned women dancing in great crystal ballrooms and handed it over to rural women who combine leisure and work in a garden dance. Does Pissarro expect the women are consciously dancing? No. He sees it himself, watching how they move while they go about their work. And as we have seen in other places, that work has value and dignity.
