Grote boom bij een landweg 1773 - 1843

Georges Michel made this drawing called 'Large Tree by a Country Road' with graphite, sometime around the late 18th or early 19th century. Michel lived through a period of revolution and radical social change in France. Michel dedicated himself to the unfashionable genre of landscape painting in a time when the academies prioritized historical or allegorical scenes. He was fascinated by the countryside on the outskirts of Paris, capturing the wildness of the landscape. The image here is more of a sketch, but even so, it’s interesting to see how he uses short strokes to convey the mass of the foliage and the roughness of the bark. In his day, he wasn’t appreciated by the art establishment, but now, we can look back and see how he captured something special about French identity at a time of great change. To understand Michel's work, we can look at the institutions of art at the time, the politics of landscape, and what was considered ‘good’ art in the French Royal Academy. Art is always rooted in its time.