Paysage (en Auvergne?)

Paysage en Auvergne from around 1830 by Théodore Rousseau records the dramatic volcanic landscape of central France. Rousseau's early travels beyond the Ile-de-France exposed him to varied terrain that broadened his landscape vocabulary beyond the forest subjects with which he is most associated. The Auvergne's ancient volcanic formations provided a different geological character from the sandy forest soils of Fontainebleau—older, more massive, with a primordial quality that suited the pantheistic reverence Rousseau brought to the natural world. Rousseau's approach to landscape combined meticulous observation of specific light conditions and atmospheric effects with a deep reverence for the natural world that gave his paintings a spiritual intensity. The Louvre holds this early work as part of its collection of French Romantic landscape painting.

The Auvergne landscape provides more dramatic terrain than Rousseau's typical forest scenes, rendered with his characteristically direct observation of natural forms.