4. Daubigny, "Spring," 1857

The exhibition "Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh: Impressions of Landscape" introduces Charles François Daubigny, a relatively forgotten artist from the 1800s. It explores his landscape painting and his influence on the younger generation of artists known as the French Impressionists.

Born in Paris in 1817, Daubigny studied Dutch landscapes in the Louvre Museum and trained with painters at the French Academy. He painted this early forest view delicately and precisely, using small brushes.

In about 1851, Daubigny painted this view of peasants harvesting grain in the fields just northeast of Paris. He wanted to capture the diffuse sunlight shimmering through the hazy atmosphere on a hot summer day in central France.

On a diagonal path alongside an orchard of flowering apple trees, a young woman rides a donkey. Behind her walk two young lovers, their heads barely visible above the fields of new grain. The scene evokes spring, with its fragrance, bursting growth, and romance. Surprisingly, this was not a common subject for painters at the time.

Daubigny traveled extensively to paint France’s many landscapes. Here, he captures the appearance of a still pond in the hills above the Rhône Valley.

In 1857, Daubigny bought an old ferryboat and equipped it with a cabin so that he could paint the French riverbanks from the water.

After his first venture on his studio boat, Daubigny embarked on more painting trips—often for weeks at a time—in spring, summer, and fall. The pictures created on his boat trips have a watery foreground that features reflections of the sky, clouds, and trees. No one had ever painted landscapes like this; he had invented another new compositional type that everyone recognized then as highly original.

Daubigny first encountered the ocean when visiting the Normandy coast in 1854. He wrote, “I see the ocean, and it is so beautiful that I don’t want to go anywhere else, and I can’t wait to work!”

At the Salon of 1864, Monet saw Daubigny’s "Cliffs at Villerville" and must have appreciated the way it captured the ever-changing light and weather at the seashore. Soon Monet created his own large picture of another stretch of beach and cliffs in Normandy, and exhibited it at the following year’s Salon, as if in dialogue with Daubigny.

Monet visited the Netherlands and painted this landscape near the village of Zaandam, very likely from a boat, in the manner of Daubigny. Like the older artist, Monet concentrated on the colorful reflections in the water and on capturing nuances of light and atmosphere.