Edge of the Forest at Fontainebleau, Setting Sun

landscape

The tame mode of Théodore Rousseau's landscapes disconcerted both the public and the critics. From 1835 to 1848 his pictures were rejected by the jury of the Salon. Rousseau painted nature for its own sake, pursuing realism and expressiveness, endowing an otherwise dull landscape with poetic feeling, eschewing anecdotal devices or literary references.

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Edge of the Forest at Fontainebleau, Setting Sun

About the Artist

Théodore Rousseau

1812 – 1867

French landscape painter, the friend of Millet and Diaz, who settled at Barbizon in 1844. His aims, style and development are characteristic of the Barbizon School, of which he was one of the principal members. Like others in the group he suffered great hardship as a result of his attempts to introduce a non-academic landscape style, although this did not make him any more understanding or friendly to the Impressionists in later years. He was known as 'le grand refusé', because of his systematic exclusion from the Paris Salon between 1836 and 1841 and his abstention between 1842 and 1849. From 1863 he was deeply interested in Japanese art, at the time when it was just becoming known in Europe.

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