NARRATOR—Two peasant women rest against a sunny backdrop of tilled fields and fruit trees. Pissarro preferred such an old-fashioned subject to the modern, urban themes favored by the other Impressionists.[MUSIC UP]This is in part because of his radical political outlook. Pissarro was a confirmed anarchist, violently opposed to the spread of capitalism and to the further urbanization and industrialization of the French countryside. In canvases like this one, he presented an alternative, utopian vision of a pre-industrialized, agrarian society, in which healthy, happy country people are engaged in a productive partnership with the land. The technique of this painting is radically different from that of Pissarro's earlier works on view in this gallery.The broad painterly quality of those canvases has given way to a more precise and deliberate application of paint with small, repetitious hatch-like strokes.Notice also the systematic juxtaposition of contrasting colors, for example in the reds and blues of the women's costumes. Pissarro was influenced by the technical innovations and color theories of the Neo-Impressionists, whose work you can see elsewhere in these galleries. Pissarro paintedTwo Young Peasant Womenin 1892. It was included in a large exhibition of the artist's works at the Durand Ruel Gallery in Paris. Although many of the pictures on view there sold for handsome prices, Pissarro reserved this one as a gift for his wife.