Page 31 - Maastricht 2022 Catalogue

Théodore Rousseau

POND BENEATH THE OAKS, FONTAINEBLEAU
(UNE MARE SOUS LES CHÊNES, FORÊT DE FONTAINEBLEAU)

As noted by the late Robert L. Herbert in his seminal study on When examined under ultra-violet light, remnants of Rousseau’s
Barbizon painting, Rousseau’s “style was marked by a patient signature are visible in the lower right of the composition. While we
inventory of nature.” (Robert Herbert, Barbizon Revisited, exh. will never be sure why his signature was painted over, we do know
cat, Boston, 1962, p. 48). It may also be said that when seen in its that for Rousseau a painting was never finished, it was meant to be
entirety, this so-called inventory was marked by an ever-changing reworked over and over, sometimes taking years to complete. In fact,
evolution of style, so much so that we are left with not just one Arman-Durand and Alfred Sensier chose our painting to illustrate in
Rousseau, but what would appear to be several different painters, their 1876 book, Études et croquis de Théodore Rousseau accompanied
each experimenting with a wide range of styles and techniques. In with the following commentary: “One of the paintings that Rousseau
other words, Rousseau was one of the most multi-faceted technical worked the most to give all the accents of the drawing to the trees,
painters of the 19th century; from his rugged views of the Auvergne to the fine branches that are silhouetted against the sky; he reworked
in the 1830s captured with a materiality of paint that almost it many times to harmonize the opaque shadows of the great oak
duplicated the boldness of the terrain to the rose-hued palette gently tree with the sky and the luminous foreground of the composition.
washing over the surface in Sunset on the Dunes of Jean-de Paris The subject is set in the Bas-Bréau in the forest of Fontainebleau, at
(Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford) to the unprecedented attention to the edge of the ancient forest, around 1860. The execution is fine,
detail, almost replicating the exactitude of a miniaturist, in his late firm and pushed to the limits of Rousseau’s talent and will.”
View of Mont Blanc (Minneapolis Institute of Art).

While Rousseau travelled and painted in various regions in France
throughout the 1830s and 40s, he settled permanently in Barbizon in
the late 1840s, remaining there until his death in 1867. Our painting,
exhibited at the Salon of 1863, depicts a woodland scene in the
Forest of Fontainebleau. A quiet pool is shaded by oak trees at the
edge of Bas-Breau, their branches reflected in the water. The trees
provide an archway into the golden meadow beyond. Stylistically,
this painting is very similar to Farm in the Landes, which Rousseau
reworked between 1852-67 (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute,
Williamstown, Massachusetts). The comparison is especially marked
in the treatment of the trees and how the verdant foliage has been
captured in a delicate overlapping lace pattern silhouetted against a
blue sky. Simon Kelly has noted that this type of composition with
the bright blue sky and flattened tree outlines may have reflected
Rousseau’s interest in Japanese prints, which he was known to have
collected (Simon Kelly, Théodore Rousseau and the Rise of the Modern
Art Market, London, 2021, p. 41). Both late works represent yet
another phase in Rousseau’s artistic and technical creativity, which
was constantly changing and evolving.

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