Landscape with Cattle at Limousin
Jules Dupré French
Unlike many of the Barbizon painters who traveled to Italy or throughout France for practical training, Dupre traveled to England in 1834 for a short but critical period of study. It was there that he encountered Constable, a renowned British landscape artist, and started to emulate the sense of movement and energy present in Constable’s landscapes. Painted several years after his trip to England, this landscape is dynamic: movement stirs among the grazing cattle and through the leaves of the trees. The bright white clouds give way to dark, ominous ones that encroach upon the scene. Dupre’s chromatic structuring, as he contrasts light and shadow for a highly dramatic effect, sets him apart from other Barbizon painters.
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