Physical description
A large oak tree in the foreground, with hues of burnt ochre in the foliage, in the background a hilly landscape under a cloudy sky.
Place of Origin
Fontainebleau, France (painted)
Date
1840s (painted)
Artist/maker
Rousseau, Pierre-Etienne-Théodore, born 1812 - died 1867 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
oil on paper laid on canvas
Marks and inscriptions
'Th. Rousseau vers 1840 Etude du Dormoir'.
Label 'Goupil and Co. Bedford Strand' on the back.
Dimensions
Height: 40.4 cm estimate, Width: 54.2 cm estimate
Object history note
Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides, 1900. Acquired by Ionides for £500 before 1881 (cf. Ionides' personal inventory of his collection, private collection), probably from the firm Goupil and Co.
Historical significance: This painting is a fine example of Rousseau's portrayal of trees, a recurrent subject matter within his production of landscape paintings. This imposing oak tree dominates the landscape in the forest of Fontainebleau and was probably depicted after the motif en plein air. The earthen and cool palette enlivened with touches of burnt ochre suggests that the picture was captured during an autumnal afternoon.
Rousseau lived in the nearby village of Barbizon, which gave its name to the realist movement developed there by artists attracted by the atmospheric effects and the beautiful nature of the forest of Fontainebleau. Their art is reminiscent of John Constable and 17th-century Dutch landscape painters, whose depiction of the natural world had a strong influence on their technical approach. Constable's strongest impact in France, from 1824 when The Haywain (1821, The National Gallery, London) was shown at the Salon, up to the late 1830s coincided with the beginning of the movement later called Barbizon school.
An inscription on the back stretcher reads: 'Th. Rousseau vers 1840. Etude du Dormoir', which places the painting around 1840 but as Kauffmann suggested, this painting may have been executed at a later date. A painting is the Louvre showing a group of oak trees in Apremont (Inv. RF 1447), executed c. 1850-52 and exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in 1855, shows many similarities with the present painting. It is not unlikely that the Louvre painting, representative of Rousseau's studio-reworked paintings, was inspired by the present composition.
Rousseau particularly favoured depicting lone trees, demonstrating a remarkable ability to capture their individuality. The present tree even had name: it was called Le Rageur (i.e. the furious one) and this painting shows Rousseau's transitional position between Romanticism and Naturalism as he oscillates between the humanisation of nature and the truthful rendering of the countryside.
Historical context note
19th-century French art is marked by a succession of movements based on a more or less close relationship with nature. At the beginning of the century, Romantic artists were fascinated by nature they interpreted as a mirror of the mind. They investigated human nature and personality, the folk culture, the national and ethnic origins, the medieval era, the exotic, the remote, the mysterious and the occult. This movement was heralded in France by such painter as Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). In its opposition to academic art and its demand for a modern style Realism continued the aims of the Romantics. They assumed that reality could be perceived without distortion or idealization, and sought after a mean to combine the perception of the individual with objectivity. This reaction in French painting against the Grand Manner is well represented by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) who wrote a 'Manifesto of Realism', entitled Le Réalisme published in Paris in 1855. These ideas were challenged by the group of the Barbizon painters, who formed a recognizable school from the early 1830s to the 1870s and developed a free, broad and rough technique. They were mainly concerned by landscape painting and the rendering of light. The works of Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña (1807-1876), Jules Dupré (1811-1889), Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867), Constant Troyon (1810-1865) and Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) anticipate somehow the plein-air landscapes of the Impressionists.
Descriptive line
Oil painting, 'A Tree in Fontainebleau Forest', Théodore Rousseau, 1840s
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Monkhouse, Cosmo, 'The Constantine Ionides Collection' in Magazine of Art, vii, 1884, p.42.
A 'splendid oak tree, felt even into the inmost recesses of its great being. Without any attempt at minute imitation it is drawn and modelled with inexhaustible patience; there is no flat or confused space in it. The air passes through the leaves, birds could fly through the branches; but it is not only a tree, it is a type of the great immovable forces of nature'
Tomson, A., Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon School, 1903, facing p. 194.
Holmes, Sir C., Burlington Magazine, vi, 1904, p. 26.
'The powerful, if heavier, portrait of an oak tree (which for years bore the name of Le Rageur, a famous oak in the Chaos d'Apremont) is perhaps even more characterisitic [than CAI. 55] of the manner in which Rousseau approached the Fontainebleau landscapes which form so large a part of his achievement'.
Kauffmann, C. M., The Barbizon School, V&A Museum, 1965, p.16 pl. 3.
Kauffmann, C.M. Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, II. 1800-1900 , London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973, pp. 89-90, cat. no. 192.
The following is the full text of the entry:
Pierre Étienne Théodore ROUSSEAU (1812-67)
French School
Born in Paris in 1812, he was studying painting professionally with the painter Redmond from the age of fourteen. He began painting from nature during excursions in the environs of Paris, including Fontainebleau, from 1826 to 1829. From 1831 to 1836 he exhibited at the Salon, but the naturalism of his landscapes made him the most controversial figure of his time and the consistent refusal of the Salon to accept any of his work between 1837 and 1848 earned him the title of Le Grand Refuse. From about 1837 he went to Barbizon nearly every year and became the central figure of the group of painters associated with that place, but public recognition came only with the Revolution of 1848 and the first class medal awarded by the free jury of the 1849 Salon.
Lit. R. L. Herbert, Barbizon revisited, New York, 1963.
192
A TREE IN FONTAINEBLEAU FOREST
On paper on canvas
16 1/8 x 21 ½ (41.55 x 55)
lonides Bequest
CAI.54
The back of the stretcher bears the inscription Th. Rousseau vers 1840 Etude du Dormoir. This date is acceptable on stylistic grounds, though the possibility of it being slightly later cannot be excluded, as Rousseau's treatment of landscape in long, broad and agitated brushstrokes continued into the late 1840s.
Condition. Cleaned in 1957.
Prov. Acquired by Constantine Alexander Ionides before 1884; bequeathed to the Museum in 1900.
Exh, French and Dutch Loan Collection, Edinburgh International Exhibition, 1886, no. 1146 (no. 96 of Mem. cat.).
Lit. Monkhouse, 1884, p. 42; A. Tomson, Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon School, 1903, facing p. 194; Sir C. Holmes in Burl. Mag., vi, 1904, p. 26; Long, Cat. Ionides Coll., 1925, p. 56; V. & A. Museum, The Barbizon School, 1965, p. 16, pl. 3.
Schulman, Michel, Théodore Rousseau, 1812-1867, catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Paris, 1999, n.244, p. 72
Henley, W. E., Memorial of the French and Dutch Loan Collection, Edinburgh International Exhibition 1886, 1888, no. 96.
100 Great Paintings in The Victoria & Albert Museum London: V&A, 1985, p.138
The following is the full text of the entry:
"Theodore Rousseau 1812-1867
French School
A TREE IN FONTAINEBLEAU FOREST
Inscribed on the back Th. Rousseau vers 1840
Oil on paper, laid down on canvas, 40.4 X 54.2 cm
CAI.54. Ionides Bequest.
Theodore Rousseau was a founder member of the Barbizon school of painters, and a life-long friend of Jean François Millet, the great painter of peasant life. They are buried side by side in Fontainebleau forest. Rousseau's landscapes, unlike those of Millet, are unpeopled, and at first sight can seem unremarkable and prosaic. But closer study reveals their mysterious power, and his remarkable ability to capture the sombre beauty of the trees in the forest of Fontainebleau. Rousseau's trees, more than those of any other artist, with the exception of John Constable, are individual portraits rather than generalized studies, as in this example, an oak tree which for years bore the name of Le Rageur, a famous oak in the Chaos d'Apremont.
A character in the powerful short story The Man Whom the Trees Loved by Algernon Blackwood is an artist whose attitude to trees closely resembles Rousseau's. 'He painted trees as by some special divining instinct of their essential qualities. He understood them. He knew why, in an oak forest, for instance, each individual was utterly distinct from its fellows, and why no two beeches in the whole world were alike ... he caught the individuality of a tree as some catch the individuality of a horse ... it was quite arresting, this way he had of making a tree look almost like a being-alive. It approaches the uncanny.'
Lionel Lambourne"
Evans, M., with N. Costaras and C. Richardson, John Constable. Oil Sketches from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: V&A, 2011, p. 30, fig. 26.
Exhibition History
French and Dutch Loan Collection (Edinburgh International Exhibition 01/01/1886-31/12/1886)
Materials
Paper; Oil paint; Canvas
Techniques
Oil painting
Subjects depicted
Landscape; Trees; Oaktree
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
