Countryside in Picardy

Countryside in Picardy, from 1860 and now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, shows Rousseau extending his landscape vision to the flat, agricultural plains of northern France. Picardy's landscape had a different character from Fontainebleau: open, agricultural, wind-swept, dominated by wide skies and the geometry of cultivated fields. Rousseau's treatment of northern French agricultural landscape parallels his Barbizon plain work but places it in a more northerly, more exposed setting. The National Gallery of Art's collection of French Romantic and Barbizon painting, assembled through major donations and purchases over the twentieth century, holds this canvas as part of a distinguished group of works from the school. By 1860, Rousseau was at the height of his reputation; his Picardy canvas represents the mature phase of a painter fully in command of his vision applied to a regional landscape setting outside his primary Fontainebleau domain.

Picardy's open, flat landscape gives Rousseau the opportunity for maximum sky emphasis — the horizon sits low, leaving the canvas dominated by the wide northern sky with its moving cloud formations. The palette is cooler and more silvery than his warm Fontainebleau ochres, responding to the region's specific atmospheric quality.