The Mill of Montmartre

Georges Michel painted this view of the Mill of Montmartre around 1820, depicting one of the windmills that dotted the hilltop village north of Paris before it was absorbed into the expanding city. Michel spent his entire career painting the terrain around Montmartre and the plain of Saint-Denis, finding in this modest landscape an inexhaustible source of dramatic compositions. His deeply personal vision of the Parisian hinterland anticipated the Barbizon painters by a generation.

Michel's expressive brushwork builds the sky with sweeping, agitated strokes that dominate the composition in the manner of Ruisdael. The windmill silhouette anchors the composition against the turbulent sky, with the low horizon line maximizing the atmospheric drama.