The Hillsides of Méry-sur-Oise, Opposite Auvers

Charles-François Daubigny was a central figure of the Barbizon School and a direct predecessor of Impressionism acknowledged by Monet himself. This 1873 view of the hillsides at Méry-sur-Oise opposite Auvers places him in a landscape later made sacred by Van Gogh and Cézanne. Daubigny had his famous studio-boat, the Botin, on which he floated the Oise and Marne painting river views. The Auvers region was his home territory — quiet river valleys, gently rolling hillsides, the modest French agricultural landscape seen in shifting light and atmosphere. The Cleveland Museum's holding connects this work to the substantial American collecting of Barbizon paintings that began in the 1870s, when Boston and New York collectors became major buyers.

Daubigny's brushwork in his mature river landscapes is loose and atmospheric, with horizontal movement of water reinforcing the scene's calm. The hillside vegetation is suggested with broken, varied greens. Sky and water are treated as reflective partners, unified by a soft grey-blue atmosphere typical of the Oise valley.