Plain of Chailly

Plain of Chailly, painted in 1862 and now in the Princeton Art Museum, depicts the broad agricultural plain between Barbizon and the village of Chailly-en-Bière that Millet also painted repeatedly from his Barbizon base. Rousseau and Millet, neighbors in Barbizon and close friends despite their very different temperaments, shared this landscape as a subject; their different treatments of the same plain reveal much about their respective artistic priorities. Rousseau's 1862 panel emphasizes the plain's vast atmospheric quality — its openness, the drama of its cloud formations, the play of light and shadow across its flat surface — rather than the agricultural labor Millet characteristically placed within it. The Princeton Art Museum's collection of Barbizon painting, assembled over a long institutional history, includes important works by both Barbizon masters. The panel format suggests an intimate scale appropriate to a private collectors' work.

The horizontal format of the panel echoes the plain's own horizontal character. Rousseau develops the composition around the contrast between a dramatic sky — active cloud formations casting variable shadow — and the relatively still, flat plain below. His palette moves from warm ochres in the foreground to cooler tones at the horizon.