Sunset near Arbonne
ca. 1860–65
Medium
Oil on wood
Dimensions
25 1/4 x 39 in. (64.1 x 99.1 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, 1900
Accession Number
25.110.4
Tags
Art Historical Context
Théodore Rousseau's *Sunset near Arbonne* (ca. 1860–65) captures the dramatic beauty of a fading day in the French countryside near Arbonne, a coastal village in the Basque region. As a leading figure of the Barbizon School—a mid-19th-century movement of realist landscape painters—Rousseau rejected the polished, idealized vistas of Romanticism in favor of direct observation from nature. Working en plein air or from meticulous studies, he emphasized the raw power of light, atmosphere, and earthy textures, influencing later Impressionists like Monet. Painted in oil on wood—a durable panel mediu...
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...