The Banks of the Oise

Riverscapes, which were plenty in Daubigny’s productions, represent a fundamental part of his oeuvre, a notable number of which he painted in the Oise region. Subjects much appreciated by the public, which at times gave rise to copies very often of sections of certain landscapes, also contributed to a sometimes difficult identification of the places depicted. Finally, the need to fulfil commissions in accordance with buyers’ wishes also resulted in paintings arbitrarily designated as 'banks of the Seine' or 'banks of the Oise'.
By resorting in this work to the use of rapid and thick brushstrokes of colour that have an immediate optical impact and by highlighting through the warm tones of a sunset the fleeting moment of the depiction, Daubigny finds in this magnificent record of the Oise a pretext for capturing a change in the light. The improvisation that can be sensed in the painting and the preference for the unfinished (which some called 'rushed') ensured a less favorable reaction from the critics of the time given the unexpected originality of his style, summed up at the time by a word which would deeply and decisively change the course of the history of painting - 'impression'!