2-747-627 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Villerville Seen from Le Ratier, 1855. The town of Villerville on the Normandy coast appears just to the right of center in this expansive landscape by Daubigny, a pioneer of outdoor painting and a major influence on Claude Monet and the Impressionists. Daubigny introduced a new kind of natural landscape based on outdoor studies of light, water, and atmospheric conditions. Here, streaks of bright light along the horizon set off the dark masses of the rocky shore in the foreground.