Rising Storm above a Hilly and Wooded Landscape

Rising Storm above a Hilly and Wooded Landscape from 1850 by Theodore Rousseau captures the dramatic weather effects that were a specialty of the Barbizon school. Rousseau's ability to render the changing atmosphere of the French countryside was central to the school's revolutionary naturalism. Rousseau's approach to landscape combined meticulous observation of specific trees, light conditions, and atmospheric effects with a deep reverence for the natural world that gave his paintings a pantheis

The approaching storm creates dramatic atmospheric tension, with dark clouds massing above the landscape rendered in Rousseau's characteristic thick, textured brushwork.