Accession Number
1982/1.261

Title
Landscape (Paysage)

Artist(s)
Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps

Artist Nationality
French (culture or style)

Object Creation Date
circa 1823-1860

Medium & Support
oil on canvas

Dimensions
14 13/16 in. x 18 3/8 in. ( 37.7 cm x 46.6 cm )

Credit Line
Museum Purchase made possible by the Friends of the Museum of Art

Label copy
March 28, 2009
Although Decamps was known as one of the first painters to travel to North Africa and Asia Minor, he spent much of his youth on the north coast of France in Picardie. From these early years, he developed an interest in images of peasants at work, subjects he would have known from direct observation.
Born in Paris, Decamps traveled to Asia Minor in his youth and reproduced Near Eastern life and scenery with a fidelity to nature that puzzled conventional critics of the time. His skills soon came to be recognized, and he was ranked along with Delacroix as one of the leaders of the French school of painting. Decamps’ style was marked by vivid dramatic conception, bold and even rough brushstrokes, and, as seen here, startling contrasts of color and of light and shade. His subjects embraced an unusually wide range, from scriptural history to historical subjects and genre pictures, many imbued, as here, with an interest in the everyday—an interest that can be seen as paving the way for the Impressionists and their interest in direct observation of the commonplace.

Subject matter
Although Decamps was known as one of the first painters to travel to North Africa and Asia Minor, he spent much of his youth in the north coast of France in Picardy. From these early years, he developed an interest in images of peasants at work. This landscape, with its strong contrasts of light and shadow, is characteristic of Decamps’ work. Also characteristic is his very dry application of paint with warm tonalities of browns.

Physical Description
A densely painted work, this cacnvas portrays a landscape with dramatic clouds. Autumnal colors predominate this rocky landscape with several figures in the middle distance; in the distance a line of trees projects above the horizon line.

Primary Object Classification
Painting

Primary Object Type
landscape

Collection Area
Western

Rights
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Keywords
clouds
landscapes (environments)
sky