View of Avignon (from Villeneuve les Avignon)
1823/69
Medium
Watercolor, with touches of gouache and scraping, selectively varnished with gum arabic, over traces of graphite, on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
31.5 × 48.3 cm (12 7/16 × 19 1/16 in.)
Classification
watercolor
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
65828
Art Historical Context
Paul Huet's *View of Avignon ( Villeneuve les Avignon)*, created between 1823 and 1869, captures a panoramic vista across the Rhône River in southern France, showcasing the medieval city's iconic skyline from the nearby village. As a leading French Romantic landscape artist, Huet was renowned his atmospheric depictions of nature, influenced by the Barbizon school's emphasis on plein-air observation. This watercolor reflects the era's Romantic fascination with light, weather, and the sublime beauty of the French countryside, bridging neoclassical precision with emerging Impressionist tendencies...
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...