[3] Sisley commented to Adolphe Tavernier the same year as painting the work "the sky can never be merely a background [...] I emphasize this part of a landscape because I would like to make you understand the importance I attach to it.

The ground, the sky, the canal, the fine skeleton of the trees, all is mauve, phasing towards pink, the air is gilded.

Beside the metallic water meander a dark man and a clear horse, both tiny next to the sparkling hedge, burning with colour.

The atmosphere is so pure that if the dark man uttered a cry, the three ways and the canal would carry the echo to the vaults of the world.

[6] It also formed part of the French Post's Year of Impressionism via a stamp with an intaglio reproduction of the painting by Pierre Gandon.