La Cascade; A Rocky Hillside With A Peasant Woman And Child Near A Waterfall And Boys Resting By A Blasted Tree 

Hubert Robert painted ‘La Cascade; A Rocky Hillside With A Peasant Woman And Child Near A Waterfall And Boys Resting By A Blasted Tree’. Robert invites us into a landscape that, in the late 18th century, would have been familiar to those living in the French countryside. Yet it idealizes the lives of those living there. Look closely and you’ll see a woman, presumably a peasant, struggles to climb the hillside, child in tow. The woman’s labor contrasts sharply with the leisurely scene to the right, where several boys recline beneath a blasted tree. Robert’s painting participates in a longer history of romanticizing rural life. The asymmetrical composition, use of light, and portrayal of nature evoke a sense of the sublime; but who gets access to that feeling? Is it the weary mother, or those with the luxury to rest and dream?