Landscape
Medium
Graphite, heightened with white chalk, on brown paper
Dimensions
6 5/16 x 10 11/16 in. (16 x 27.1 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Pfeiffer Fund, 1964
Accession Number
64.136.2
Tags
Art Historical Context
Théodore Rousseau's *Landscape* (1842) captures the essence of the French countryside through a masterful drawing that exemplifies his pivotal role in the Barbizon. Active in the 1830s and 1840s around the Fontainebleau Forest, Rousseau the idealized landscapes of academic art, favoring direct observation of nature's raw beauty. This intimate study, rendered on brown paper, likely served as a preparatory sketch for larger oil paintings, reflecting his commitment to plein air sketching amid trees and rolling terrain—hallmarks of his oeuvre. Executed in graphite heightened with white chalk, the...
About the Artist
Théodore Rousseau · 1812–1867
Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) was a French landscape painter and the leading figure of the Barbizon School, the group of artists who settled in the village of Barbizon near the Forest of Fontainebleau to paint directly from nature. Born in Paris, he showed precocious talent and studied under the academic painters Charles Rémond and Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, but quickly rejected classical landsca...