Théodore Rousseau, 'Landscape with Stormy Sunset', possibly 1844

Under a stormy sunset sky a distant range of mountains is strung out along the horizon, in front of which lies a line of brown hills. In the foreground, standing at the edge of what is possibly an expanse of water, is a figure dressed in black and wearing a white hat. He is perhaps fishing. The immediate foreground is a mass of dark olive-brown undergrowth and vegetation, with trees to the left. This view was formerly dated to Rousseau’s 1830 trip to the Auvergne (for which see The Valley of Saint-Vincent), and identified as a view of that region. It is now thought to date from later in his career, and has been associated with the trip he made in 1844 with Jule-Louis Dupré to the Landes, a region south of Bordeaux, and the Pyrenees. In his 1872 biography of Rousseau, Alfred Sensier wrote of how the pair, attracted by the desolate and inhospitable nature of the area, made a prolonged visit, staying for five months in all. Many of Rousseau’s views of the region feature a vast plain, often with a chain of mountains in the distance, for example The Plain in front of the Pyrenees (about 1845, Louvre, Paris). In our painting the mountains in the distance are probably also the Pyrenees.

The sky is thickly painted with multiple layers of blues, greys and pinks. Broad brushstrokes have been used to bring the sky paint down over the mountains on the horizon, in some cases obscuring their outlines. The area of water is even more thickly painted, with strong impasto. In places Rousseau had more than one colour on his brush, such as a mixture of creamy yellow, grey and a variety of greens. This thick application of paint and rigorous brushwork is certainly typical of Rousseau’s technique in the 1840s. The scene is painted on top of an earlier composition, some of which is visible to the naked eye through thinner areas of paint. At the bottom right, for example, you can see a round bucket or barrel, its planks clearly delineated. There is also a structure similar to a boat, complete with sails, lying underneath the paint layers.