3-035-648 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

View in the Île-de-France, about 1810-1813. This plein air (made outdoors) oil sketch by Jean-Victor Bertin captures the graceful curve of a sunlit bridge on the outskirts of a French village in the early 1800s. A steep hillside ridge in the distance echoes this line of light tracing the roadway, dividing the image into thirds. At the painting's center, horizontal shapes meet vertical ones, created by the upward thrust of village dwellings. Interestingly, the artist's careful observation of light both enhances and obscures this obsession with geometry. Late afternoon sun throws most of the scene's natural and manmade subjects into shadow, with surprising punctuations of colour and light in the sky and foreground.