Landscape near Fontainebleau

Rousseau's Landscape near Fontainebleau from around 1850 captures the countryside that formed the border between the great royal forest and the agricultural plains of the Île-de-France—a transitional landscape of extraordinary variety where forest, farmland, and village existed in close proximity. By 1850 Rousseau had spent over a decade living in Barbizon and knew the landscape surrounding Fontainebleau with intimate specificity, able to distinguish the character of different sections of the forest edge with the precision of long acquaintance. This settled, intimate knowledge of a particular place distinguished Barbizon landscape from the touring sketches of earlier generations and gave Rousseau's mature works an authority of observed fact that critics recognized as a new form of landscape truth.

The familiar landscape is rendered with the confidence of deep knowledge, Rousseau's textured brushwork and warm palette capturing the specific character of the Fontainebleau terrain. Atmospheric effects are handled with the subtlety that comes from years of careful observation.