Historians have frequently described Le Sidaner's work in terms of musicality and silence. Always in a 'minor key,' its subtle harmonies are seen to evoke a wistful mood that is intensified, as Paul Signac notes, by the absence of figures: "His oeuvre displays a taste for tender, soft and silent atmospheres. Gradually, he even went so far as to eliminate all human presence from his pictures, as if he feared that the slightest human form might disturb their muffled silence" (Y. Farinaux- Le Sidaner, op cit., p. 31).

Many of his works including Canal a Annecy demonstrate beautiful solitude such as a lone swan drifting along a canal framed by flowering trees. The stillness of the gliding swan, the absence of...