Paysage avec Marie Madeleine pénitente

Master of the Female Half-Lengths created this landscape around 1525, reflecting the growing importance of natural scenery in High Renaissance art. Landscape painting was developing from a background element into an independent genre. The painting is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon. His compositions are distinguished by their delicate refinement and the cultured attributes — musical instruments, prayer books, songsheets — that accompany his subjects.

The painting demonstrates the technical conventions and artistic vocabulary of the period, with attention to composition, color, and the rendering of form appropriate to the subject.