GREGOIRE
JEANMONOD
Art and its stories as an inspiration
Charles-Francois Daubigny
Gloton
1857
Change point of view
Like his comrades at the so-called Barbizon School – named after the village near Fontainebleau where the colony of painters had taken up residence in the middle of the 19th century – Charles-François Daubigny tirelessly explored the possibilities offered by outdoor painting, particularly in terms of play of light.
Among the themes that were dear to him: the river landscapes, which evoked the particular atmosphere and vegetation of the surroundings of the rivers between the Seine and the Oise. But while artists have always
observed the rivers naturally from their banks, Daubigny sought an original point of view. To describe the river and its surroundings, he wanted to place his easel no longer on dry land, but at the very heart of his subject: on the water. He therefore bought a boat which he transformed into a floating workshop. It is on this boat called " the directory » that he painted his most beautiful landscapes, whose vanishing point merges with that of the river and which literally plunges us, the spectators, into an authentic and soothing river atmosphere.
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What we can take away:
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It is often possible, by showing cleverness and imagination, to take an original look at a situation that is nevertheless perfectly familiar. By finding a new point of view from which to observe the ordinary, we sometimes manage to re-enchant the everyday and to glimpse new opportunities.