Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867) and Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878) were among the artists who travelled to the village of Barbizon in France in the first half of the 19th century. Instead of idealising nature like their predecessors, they made more realistic paintings and drawings of the age-old woodlands.
The Mesdags amassed a large collection of works by Barbizon artists, of which the most drawings are by Rousseau and Daubigny. These drawings offer a varied introduction to their fascination with nature.
Théodore Rousseau
Rousseau’s drawings unite meticulous observation and inner experience. He identified with the trees in his works, and made it his purpose to capture these ‘souls of the forest’. Rousseau experimented widely with different materials and techniques.
Théodore Rousseau, The Great Oaks of Old Bas-Bréau, 1857
Charles-François Daubigny
Daubigny mostly drew vast, sober landscapes, preferably on elongated paper. Daubigny was more concerned with capturing the atmosphere of the place than with offering an exact representation of what he saw.
Charles-François Daubigny, Moonlit Landscape with Flock of Sheep, 1859