THE NAME CHARLES-FRANÇOIS DAUBIGNY IS NOT OFTEN HEARD IN ART
CIRCLES, BUT TO SOME, HE IS A TRUE FOREFATHER OF IMPRESSIONISM. KEVIN
BREATHNACH REMEMBERS THE PAINTER WHO INSPIRED MONET AND VAN GOGHOn 21 May 1890, not long after moving to Auvers-sur-Oise,
Vincent Van Gogh wrote a letter to his brother, Theo,
expressing his certainty – for he had heard it said around
the town – that Madame Sophie Daubigny, 12 years the
widow of the landscape painter Charles-François Daubigny,
was ‘still living here’.
Though at one time so favoured by the Salon
establishment in Paris that he had sat on several of its
juries, by the time he died in 1878, Charles-François
Daubigny’s landscapes and river scenes were likely more
highly regarded by the Impressionist vanguard. The Salon
where he had been so respected was also where his later
work was criticised for appearing ‘unfinished’.
“By the time he finishes his career, he’s painting in a
quite different manner,” comments Lynne Ambrosini,
curator of European Art at the Taft Museum and co-author
of Inspiring Impressionism: Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh.
“Starting out, he used small brushes and well-blended
paints, building up layers over a great deal of time. Now,
he’s working wet-into-wet, around areas already laid in,
lightly laying down a little colour over an already paintedFirst
impressions
area, not letting the paint dry. It appears a much more
spontaneous approach.”
At the beginning of his career, in the late-1830s,
Daubigny had achieved modest success for a couple of
conventional neoclassical landscapes. But it was not until
he moved to Barbizon in 1843, where he began to work
outdoors, that he established his own distinct vernacular
and style. “He took a different route,” notes Lynne, “he
began to focus on the observable landscape of the French
countryside, no longer trying to include figures from the
Bible or mythology or ancient history. He began to describe
himself as realist.”
In 1872, Claude Monet settled in Argenteuil where,
following the example of Daubigny, he acquired a small
studio boat from which to paint river scenes, many of these- including The Seine at Lavacourt (1880) – are
thematically and compositionally indebted to the work
Daubigny produced in the 1860s, while working on his own
converted studio boat, Le Botin. This obsessive return to
the countryside is not without its own prodigal quality, this
after all was the landscape of Daubigny’s childhood.
On the advice of painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, he
bought a plot of land in Auvers. Here he developed his
middle and late style, which emphasised a sketchy,
‘unfinished’ quality over the precision of the academic
tradition. It was one that informed, and was later informed
by, the Impressionists who lived near the area.
Daubigny’s influence reached beyond Monet and the
troubled Dutch painter. To the keen eye, Camille Pissarro’s
The Marne at Chennevière (1865) is a clear homage to his
work: a dreamy riverscape which, from an oblique mid-river
vantage point, depicts the bank on the right-side of the
river and the clouds directly above it, all doubled in the
water, arranged more or less as a Daubigny.
And what of his travelling admirer, Van Gogh? Not until
almost a month after that first letter on the 21 May to
brother Theo does the painter offer anything further on the
subject of Mme Daubigny. In the first weeks of June, he
went looking for her house. Finally he writes to Theo, and
Charles François-
Daubigny, Fields in
the month of June,
1874, oil on canvas,
135x224cm>Charles François-
Daubigny, Soleil
couchant sur
l’Oise, oil on panel,
23x33cmClaude Monet,
Champs de
coquelicots, 1881
oil on canvas,
58 x79cmGIFT OF MR. AND MRS. LOUIS V. KEELER, CLASS OF 1911 ITHACA, NY, JOHNSON MUSEUM OF ART, CORNELL UNIVERSITYCOLLECTION: DIJON, MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS, FRANCECLOCKWISE FROM
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