Trees and Pool

Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña

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Object Label

Some mid-nineteenth-century French artists, such as Auguste-François Bonheur, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña, and Théodore Rousseau, were proponents of working en plein air (painting outdoors). In their informal oil sketches, the terrain, foliage, and sky are loosely defined with a series of delicate touches and broad brushstrokes, foreshadowing the Impressionist interest in light and atmosphere. These are the kind of quickly rendered landscapes that might have been used as studies for larger, more formal compositions made in the studio. Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida continued to use this technique in the early twentieth century, making a small oil study of boaters on the coast of Valencia using a bright, vivid color palette.

Caption

Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña French, 1807–1876. Trees and Pool, ca. 1840–1850. Oil on panel, 8 5/16 x 12 3/16 in. (21.1 x 31 cm) frame: 16 × 20 3/8 × 3 1/4 in. (40.6 × 51.8 × 8.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Cornelia E. and Jennie A. Donnellon, 33.275. No known copyright restrictions (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 33.275.jpg)

Gallery

Not on view

Collection

European Art

Title

Trees and Pool

Date

ca. 1840–1850

Geography

Place made: France

Medium

Oil on panel

Classification

Painting

Dimensions

8 5/16 x 12 3/16 in. (21.1 x 31 cm) frame: 16 × 20 3/8 × 3 1/4 in. (40.6 × 51.8 × 8.3 cm)

Signatures

Signed lower left: "N. Diaz"

Credit Line

Gift of Cornelia E. and Jennie A. Donnellon

Accession Number

33.275

Rights

No known copyright restrictions

This work may be in the public domain in the United States. Works created by United States and non-United States nationals published prior to 1923 are in the public domain, subject to the terms of any applicable treaty or agreement. You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this work. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties, such as artists or artists' heirs holding the rights to the work. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. The Brooklyn Museum makes no representations or warranties with respect to the application or terms of any international agreement governing copyright protection in the United States for works created by foreign nationals. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.

Frequent Art Questions

  • The painters of the Barbizon School were really interested in landscape painting; they wanted to depict nature directly, outside of the classical conventions. That's why you'll see so many landscapes in a similar style on that wall.

    I do love Fontainebleau.
    Many of the Barbizon school painters worked in the Forest of Fontainebleau, just outside of Paris, as nature, rather than urban life, provided inspiration for their works. They got their name from the nearby village of Barbizon.

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