Accession Number
2009.115
Medium
charcoal with white heightening
Dimensions
Sheet: 37.8 x 62.8 cm (14 7/8 x 24 3/4 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Credit Line
Bequest of Muriel Butkin
Tags
Drawing Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Charcoal French
Background & Context
Background Story
Eugene Deshayes (active mid-19th century) was a painter known for the atmospherically composed, precisely observed landscape paintings that make him one of the accomplished painters of the French landscape tradition. Windmills in a Landscape from c. 1850-90 depicts windmills in a landscape in the atmospherically composed, precisely observed manner that distinguishes Deshayes' best work. Windmills were one of the most picturesque subjects in European landscape painting, representing the rural life and agricultural economy of the Netherlands and northern France, and Deshayes' atmospherically composed treatment shows the landscape tradition at its most accomplished.
Cultural Impact
Windmills in a Landscape is important in the history of landscape painting because it demonstrates the atmospherically composed, precisely observed manner that Deshayes brought to landscape painting as one of the accomplished painters of the French landscape tradition. Windmills—representing the rural life and agricultural economy of northern Europe—were one of the most picturesque subjects in landscape painting, and the c. 1850-90 painting shows this tradition at its most atmospherically composed.
Why It Matters
Windmills in a Landscape is Deshayes' atmospherically composed landscape: windmills rendered in the precisely observed manner of one of the accomplished painters of the French landscape tradition. The c. 1850-90 painting shows one of the most picturesque subjects in European landscape painting at its most atmospherically composed.
