Blue and Orange Sky
1838/40
Medium
Pastel on tanned-gray wove paper with blue fibers
Dimensions
18.8 × 27.9 cm (7 7/16 × 11 in.)
Classification
pastel
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
159360
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
A preeminent landscape painter of the French Romantic movement, Paul Huet sketched en plein air in Paris and its environs, Normandy, and the Auvergne. His style of landscape painting and drawing greatly influenced members of the Barbizon School and, later, the Impressionists. Pastels such as this are seldom found outside of France.
About the Artist
Paul Huet · 1803–1869
Paul Huet was born in Paris in 1803 and emerged as one of the founding figures of French Romantic landscape painting, a pioneer who helped chart the course from the classical tradition of the previous century toward the freer, more emotionally charged approach to nature that would define the Romantic era. As a young man he studied briefly with Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes and Antoine-Jean Gros, bu...