Théodore Rousseau

1812 - 1867

Rousseau initially studied under J.-C.-J. Rémond and Guillon Lethiëre. In 1830 he spent several months in the Auvergne, where he painted studies from nature, and it was with a scene from this region that he made his debut at the Paris Salon in 1831.

From the mid-1830s he began to spend increasingly more time in the village of Barbizon, where he settled in 1844. The varied topography of the area of the Forest of Fontainebleau became his chief subject matter. His naturalism was the result of intense, meditative study of nature, and he would often work on a single composition for several years.

Excluded from the Salon for a number of years, his fortune changed after the Revolution of 1848, and in 1849 he exhibited three paintings and won a first class medal.

Paintings by Théodore Rousseau

A Rocky Landscape

Théodore Rousseau

A sandy path runs down the middle of a rocky barren ravine. This view, with its high horizon and full-frontal close-up depiction of the path and rocks, is particularly original. The location is probably that of Les Sables du Jean-de-Paris, a sandy hillside topped with boulders and trees within th...

On display elsewhere

Landscape

Théodore Rousseau

This work, with its preliminary drawing left visible, is typical of Rousseau’s later style. In the distance a chain of hills is sketched in blue. A plain in the foreground is dappled in yellow, echoing the fragmented light of the sky. In the sky itself the thin application of blue paint leaves...

Not on display

Landscape with Stormy Sunset

Théodore Rousseau

Under a stormy sunset sky a distant range of mountains is strung out along the horizon. In the foreground a figure stands at the edge of what is possibly an expanse of water. This view was probably painted in 1844, when Rousseau travelled with Jules-Louis Dupré to the Landes, a region south of Bo...

On display elsewhere

River Scene

Théodore Rousseau

In the middle distance, a solitary figure fishes from a flat-bottomed boat or punt moored in an inlet of water, which may be part of a river estuary. Although there are trees, the landscape is flat and marshy with small rivulets running through it. The thin strip of grey-blue on the horizon sugge...

Not on display

The Valley of Saint-Vincent

Théodore Rousseau

From the grassy outcrop in the left foreground there is a vertiginous drop into the valley, which in its sweep towards the menacing line of mountains in the distance fades from green to blue. The valley is criss-crossed with dark green tree lines, the trees conjured up out of small swirls of the...

On display elsewhere

Moonlight: The Bathers

Imitator of Théodore Rousseau

Two naked children appear to be bathing in a pool beneath a dark tree set against a cloudy, moonlit sky. A third child, who is clothed, sits on the bank near a patch of red that may be a fire.It is likely that this picture was painted by a late nineteenth-century imitator of Theodore Rousseau and...

On display elsewhere