Lot 73
Europe, France, Barbizon School, 19th century. A striking French Barbizon School oil-on-wood panel painting presenting a seaside view from a tranquil, wooded hamlet shaded by leafy tree canopies. Charming sailboats glide along the waters, and luminous clouds mark the azure sky above. A setting sun dapples the day's final moments of light upon a lone staffage figure in red who walks along the emerald green moss-covered ground before an alluring opening between the trees in the middle distance. While the location of this painting has not been identified, it is possible that the artist was inspired by Camille Corot's pond views painted at his family's Ville-d'Avray property. Size of painting: 4.5" L x 6.375" W (11.4 cm x 16.2 cm) Size of frame: 8.5" L x 10.5" W (21.6 cm x 26.7 cm)
Artists of the Barbizon School were inspired to paint their native landscape, especially the Forest of Fontainebleau, as an independent subject, breaking away from Neoclassical artists' emulation of Renaissance and Classical landscapes which were always associated with historical and mythological themes. Instead, these artists painted from nature en plein air, with inspiration coming directly from the landscape. Alfred Sensier was a friend and biographer of the Barbizon painters Theodore Rousseau and Jean-Francois Millet who wrote the following about their obsession with the Forest of Fontainebleau, "They had reached such a pitch of over-excitement that they were quite unable to work
the proud majesty of the old trees, the virgin state of rocks and heath
all these intoxicated them with their beauty and their smell. They were, in truth, possessed." Still, the romance of Barbizon was undeniable. According to Dita Amory's essay for the Metropolitan Museum of Art website, "Barbizon was more than just a place; it was an encompassing motif. Like other great motifs, it transcended geography. Inspirational and nurturing, even despite daily trials of frostbitten fingers at winter's dawn or sunburned hands at summer's midday, Barbizon answered the quest for landscape's metaphoric power. The artists of the Barbizon School showed us the rapidly disappearing rural path to painterly 'truth' well before the Impressionists trod the same forest and fields, carrying with them their factory-made satchels with metallic tubes of new pigments and their modern ways of seeing. Landscape painting was no longer subservient to history painting. It was history in the making."
Provenance: Ex-Dodge collection, Superior, Colorado, USA
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#172512
- Condition: Painting is original, no restoration, and in very nice condition overall save minor, expected age wear. A few small areas of loss to the frame with slight pigment touch up to frame in these areas. Fitted with suspension wire and ready to display.
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