Landscape with a Poplar and a Willow Tree at the Edge of a Pond
1787–1842
Medium
Black chalk
Dimensions
19 7/16 x 14 3/16 in. (49.3 x 36cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Van Day Truex Fund, 1991
Accession Number
1991.190
Tags
Art Historical Context
Jean Victor Bertin, a Neoclassical painter active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the serene beauty of nature in *Landscape with a Poplar a Willow Tree at the of a Pond*. This drawing, rendered in black chalk, showcases his mastery of landscape depiction during a period when artists were increasingly drawn to the harmonious balance of classical ideals and observed reality. Bertin's works often idealized pastoral scenes, reflecting the Enlightenment-era fascination with nature's order amid revolutionary upheavals in France. The medium of black chalk lends a soft, tonal depth to the ...
About the Artist
Jean Victor Bertin · 1775–1842
Jean-Victor Bertin (1767–1842) was a leading French neoclassical landscape painter whose meticulous classical compositions bridged the grandeur of historical landscapes with emerging plein air naturalism. Born in Paris on March 20, 1767, to a master wig-maker, Bertin entered the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1785 at age eighteen as a pupil of history painter Gabriel-François Doyen...