Vallée de Chevreuse, en automne

The Vallée de Chevreuse southwest of Paris, a shallow chalk valley with beech forests and small agricultural villages, offered Guillaumin in 1876 a subject quite different from the industrial Seine quais that dominated his early work. The autumn valley — the title specifies 'en automne' — gave him the chromatic richness of turning foliage against the grey-green of the valley floor, a palette that suited the increasingly warm, saturated character of his developing style. The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo holds this canvas, continuing the Norwegian institutional engagement with French Impressionism that placed several Guillaumin works in Scandinavian collections. By 1876 Guillaumin had participated in two Impressionist group exhibitions and was a thoroughly committed member of the movement, exploring different landscape subjects as his style consolidated. The Chevreuse valley's gentle beauty presented a more conventionally scenic subject than his Paris quais, but he approached it with the same direct, unpretentious observation.

Oil on canvas with the firm, moderately loaded handling of Guillaumin's mid-1870s phase. The autumn foliage is built from strokes in warm ochre, russet, and golden-yellow against the cooler valley floor, the complementary contrast between warm trees and cool ground generating the seasonal energy. The composition is structured around the valley's topography — hillside, flat valley, far slope — with the autumn colours providing chromatic focus.