Mountain Landscape at Sunset

Französische Malerei 1740–1787, c. 1765

The dark, forest-green canopies of trees to our right are silhouetted against a sky that warms from pale blue along the top edge of the composition to butter yellow along the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted so many details are vague and difficult to make out. Closest to us, a diagonal band of caramel brown leading from the lower left corner back to the dark green could be the thick trunk of a felled tree, indicating that we look along the trunk into the massive canopy of an old tree, or the light brown could loosely suggest a forest. The horizon beyond is lined with a band of smoky purple, which could be a mountain range in the deep distance. Pale plum-purple clouds edged with shell pink angle from the horizon to the upper right corner against the golden sky.
Artist
Französische Malerei 1740–1787
Date
c. 1765
Type
Painting
Medium
oil on paper
Dimensions
21.5 × 32.8 cm
Collection
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Licence
Public domain, CC0

Image description

The dark, forest-green canopies of trees to our right are silhouetted against a sky that warms from pale blue along the top edge of the composition to butter yellow along the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted so many details are vague and difficult to make out. Closest to us, a diagonal band of caramel brown leading from the lower left corner back to the dark green could be the thick trunk of a felled tree, indicating that we look along the trunk into the massive canopy of an old tree, or the light brown could loosely suggest a forest. The horizon beyond is lined with a band of smoky purple, which could be a mountain range in the deep distance. Pale plum-purple clouds edged with shell pink angle from the horizon to the upper right corner against the golden sky.

Französische Malerei 1740–1787