Forest of Fontainebleau

This painting is typical of the landscapes of the Barbizon school, a group of French painters during the mid-19th century who worked in and around the Forest of Fontainebleau, specifically the village of Barbizon, some 35 miles southeast of Paris. Their goals were to rediscover the magic of untouched nature remote from the urban center and to celebrate the natural world in all its commonplace, unembellished details. In this work, we see a grove of oaks, their gnarled trunks dramatically illuminated by a few shafts of light that penetrate the otherwise somber forest. Many of the naturalist qualities represented in this painting eventually influenced the development of impressionism.