Description
This view of a ruined building on a rocky cliff in Châteauvieux above the Suran river in the French Alps is constructed in the manner of a classical or ideal landscape. Forms recede at a measured pace along a sinuous, curving path that passes through carefully defined planes of fore, middle, and background. The warm, glowing light and imaginary figures pursuing their daily tasks contribute to the mood of timeless, pastoral bliss.
Provenance
London sale, Sotheby's, 20 July 1977 (lot 142, repr.), as Théodore Caruelle d'Aligny, An Italian Landscape. (-1977); (Shepherd Gallery, New York, NY, sold to Noah L. Butkin) (1977); Noah L. Butkin [1918-1980], Shaker Heights, OH by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art (1977-1980); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1980-)
Accession Number
1980.251
Medium
oil on paper mounted on fabric
Dimensions
Unframed: 53.3 x 75.1 cm (21 x 29 9/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Bequest of Noah L. Butkin
Tags
Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Oil Painting French
Background & Context
Background Story
Antoine-Claude Ponthus-Cinier (1812-1883) was a French painter known for the atmospheric, precisely observed landscape paintings that make him one of the most accomplished landscape painters of the French Lyonnais school. Chateauvieux-sur-Suran from 1848 depicts the village of Chateauvieux-sur-Suran in the atmospheric, precisely observed manner that distinguishes Ponthus-Cinier's best work from the more general landscape painting of his contemporaries. Ponthus-Cinier was one of the most important landscape painters of the Lyonnais school, known for his atmospheric, precisely observed landscapes of the French countryside, and the 1848 painting shows the Lyonnais school at its most accomplished.
Cultural Impact
Chateauvieux-sur-Suran is important in the history of French landscape painting because it demonstrates the atmospheric, precisely observed manner that Ponthus-Cinier brought to French landscape subjects as one of the most accomplished landscape painters of the Lyonnais school. Ponthus-Cinier's atmospheric, precisely observed landscapes of the French countryside—combining atmospheric effect with precise observation—represent one of the most accomplished traditions in the Lyonnais school of landscape painting, and the 1848 painting shows this tradition at its most atmospheric.
Why It Matters
Chateauvieux-sur-Suran is Ponthus-Cinier's atmospheric Lyonnais landscape: the village of Chateauvieux-sur-Suran rendered in the precisely observed manner of one of the most accomplished landscape painters of the Lyonnais school. The 1848 painting shows the combination of atmospheric effect with precise observation that makes Lyonnais landscape painting distinctive.
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