Description
One of the first American artists to paint in Giverny, France (northwest of Paris), Theodore Robinson drew upon the teachings of the region’s most famous resident, Claude Monet, in his vibrant compositions. Using layered, broken brushwork, Robinson foregrounded the slope of the hill, leading the eye from the figure at right across the Valley of Arconville (southeast of Paris). Capturing the effects of light on the landscape like Monet and other progressive French painters, Robinson nonetheless rendered his forms with a measure of solidity that was more typical of American artists who worked in an Impressionist style.
Provenance
Arthur A. Carey, Waltham, MA, by 1889. M. Knoedler and Co., New York, by 1908; Hillyer Art Gallery, Smith College, Northampton, MA, 1908; M. Knoedler and Co., New York, 1931; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1941.
Accession Number
40549
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
45.8 × 55.7 cm (18 × 21 7/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Friends of American Art Collection
Background & Context
Background Story
Theodore Robinsons The Valley of Arconville from around 1887 is an oil on canvas that exemplifies the American Impressionist painters approach to the French landscape, in which the compositional conventions of the Barbizon School are combined with the chromatic richness and atmospheric subtlety of the Impressionist technique that Robinson learned from his close friend and mentor Claude Monet. Robinson, who was one of the first American painters to adopt the Impressionist style and the artist who introduced Impressionism to the American public through his paintings and his teaching at the Art Students League, spent several years in France painting alongside Monet at Giverny and developing the personal style that he would bring back to the United States. The valley of Arconville, a small village in the French countryside, provided Robinson with a subject that combined the compositional format of the Barbizon landscape, with its low horizon and expansive sky, with the chromatic richness and broken brushwork of the Impressionist technique. The oil on canvas medium, applied with the broken brushwork and chromatic richness that Robinson absorbed from Monet, creates a surface in which the landscape is rendered as a series of color sensations rather than a topographic description, and the atmospheric effects of light and weather are represented through the interaction of complementary colors on the canvas. The date of around 1887 places this painting in the period when Robinson was most directly under Monets influence, producing landscapes that are among the most accomplished examples of American Impressionism.
Cultural Impact
Robinsons French landscapes are among the most accomplished works in the history of American Impressionism, and The Valley of Arconville demonstrates the combination of Barbizon composition and Impressionist technique that makes his work significant. The painting influenced the development of Impressionism in America and the broader tradition of American landscapes painted in France.
Why It Matters
An oil on canvas painting by Robinson from around 1887 of the Valley of Arconville, combining Barbizon School compositional conventions with Monets Impressionist chromatic richness and broken brushwork in one of the most accomplished examples of American Impressionist landscape painting in France.
