Neo-classical Landscape with a View of a Town

(Jean-Rodolphe Gautier)

Although Gautier, as far as we know, never studied with Valenciennes, in this work he has clearly absorbed the lessons that the older artist imparted to his students and Salon visitors. The perspective is defined by the counter-play of light and shadow across the picture plane, and a winding path that climbs from the left foreground, then angles across the center of the composition. Two classical figures walk together across what is probably a bridge over a river, into which the water cascades from a broader stretch above. Seated by the curve of the road two other figures rest while a farmer urges his oxen up the steep path as it climbs the gorge. High above, a group of classical buildings, rather reminiscent of Valenciennes’s style in the same years, is composed of several different Roman monuments and churches surmounting the hill-top and higher still some trees are silhouetted against the skyline above a steep cliff. On the right, behind the walking figures, a tall tree thrusts upwards to balance the distant cliffs.

This work was long mis-attributed Gauffier and then to Bertin but its firm identification can be made by reference to its pendant, on which upon close inspection the signature of Rodolphe Gautier was found. The palette is richer than either Bertin or Bidauld used at this time, although Gautier like Bidauld had carefully observed the effects of sun on leaves, which he too marked in golden highlights. While the painting has no discernible classical subject, it nonetheless merits the description of paysage historique rather than a simple capriccio view.

EXHIBITED: Paris, Salon, 1796, no. 191, ‘Deux Vues d’Italie, sous le même numéro. Ces tableaux appartiennent à l’Auteur.’
Matthiesen Gallery & Stair Sainty Matthiesen, ‘The Gallic Prospect’, 1999