French school, ca.1870-1880.

French school, ca.1870-1880.
"Sunday Afternoon."
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 40 x 95 cm; 66 x 121 cm (frame).
Of landscape framing and wide panoramic opening, the present canvas resolved with impressionist technique, made at the time when this artistic movement was breaking molds with its way of capturing reality, denotes the influence of painters like Renoir or Monet. In a forest clearing, on the outskirts of a village, improvised vegetable and food stalls have been set up. Ancient trees form lush natural canopies. Elegant couples and mothers with their children make their way to the wooden huts. Some linger with their friends to gossip about other villagers. You can tell by the sly looks and sly gestures. The groups dismember naturally, allowing themselves to be carried away by the whimsy of the conversations. The vibrant and impastoed brushstroke captures from nature the web of light and color that filters from the thick leaf litter, and undoes the forms but without letting the referential element be lost: headdresses, long dresses and tails, cotton aprons, fine lace... And although the detail is subsumed by the typically impressionist incandescent light, there remains a certain reluctance to stop describing the quality of the fabrics, the narrative implicit in the gestures, the anecdote of each gesture. We are before a Gallic landscape that could be Norman, perhaps from the Loire region, also immortalized by Renoir in those years when pleinairism reached a high level and development. Outdoor picnics, dances and everyday pleasures were sublimated by the French impressionists, revolutionizing the way of looking.